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JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 


9 




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JOHN MARVEL 
ASSISTANT 


BY 

THOMAS NELSON PAGE 

\\ 


ILLUSTRATED BY 

JAMES MONTGOMERY FLAGG 


NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 
1919 





% 


Copyright, 1909, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Published October, 1909 


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Rtp\ & Cement" 






TO 

THOSE LOVED ONES 
WHOSE NEVER FAILING SYMPATHY YAP 
LED ME ALL THESE YEARS 



I 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 


I. 

My First Failure 



1 

II. 

The Jew and the Christian 



5 

III. 

The Fight .... 



16 

IV. 

Delilah 



26 

V. 

The Hare and the Tortoise 



36 

VI 

The Meteor .... 



44 

VII. 

The Hegira .... 



55 

VIII. 

Padan-Aram .... 



67 

IX. 

I Pitch My Tent 



84 

X. 

A New Girl .... 



103 

XI. 

Eleanor Leigh 



114 

XII. 

John Marvel 



138 

XIII. 

Mr. Leigh .... 



147 

XIV. 

Miss Leigh Seeks Work . 



154 

XV. 

The Lady of the Violets 



172 

XVI. 

The Shadow of Sham 



186 

XVII. 

The Gulf .... 



198 

XVIII. 

The Drummer 



215 

XIX. 

Re-enter Peck 


. 

227 


vii 


CONTENTS 


Viii 


CHAPTER PAGB 


XX. 

My First Client . 


. 245 

XXL 

The Resurrection of Dix 


. 259 

XXII. 

The Preacher 


. 275 

XXIII. 

Mrs. Argand .... 


. 286 

XXIV. 

Wolffert’s Mission . 


. 305 

XXV. 

Fate Leads .... 


. 319 

XXVI. 

Coll McSheen’s Methods 


. 339 

XXVII. 

The Shadow .... 


. 354 

XXVIII. 

The Walking Delegate . 


. 361 

XXIX. 

My Confession 


. 381 

XXX. 

Seeking One That Was Lost 

. 398 

XXXI. 

John Marvel’s Raid . 


. 416 

XXXII. 

Doctor Caiaphas . 


. 430 

XXXIII. 

The Peace-maker 


.- 453 

XXXIV. 

The Flag of Truce . 


. 465 

XXXV. 

Mr. Leigh has a Proposal 
Marriage Made Him . 

OF 

. 493 

XXXVI. 

The Riot and Its Victim . 


. 507 

XXXVII. 

Wolffert’s Neighbors 


. 517 

XXXVIII. 

Wolffert’s Philosophy 


. 527 

XXXIX. 

The Conflict 


. 539 

XL. 

The Curtain .... 


. 563 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


“ To ply your old trade?” I asked . . Frontispiece 

Facing page 

Wol fieri . . . was cursing me with all the eloquence 


of a rich vocabulary 20 

“Hi! W hat you doin’ f ” he stammered ... 60 

“ But you must not come in” 140 

“ Perhaps, you are the man yourself f” she added in- 
solently 302 

“ Speak her soft, Galley” 412 


“ l suppose it is necessary that we should at least ap- 
pear to be exchanging the ordinary inanities” . 468 

I am sure it was on that stream that Haley one found 

retreat 556 













JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 


i 

MY FIRST FAILURE 

I shall feel at liberty to tell my story in my own way; 
rambling along at my own gait; now going from point 
to point; now tearing ahead; now stopping to rest 
or to ruminate, and even straying from the path 
whenever I think a digression will be for my own en- 
joyment. 

I shall begin with my college career, a period to which 
I look back now with a pleasure wholly incommensurate 
with what I achieved in it; which I find due to the 
friends I made and to the memories I garnered there in a 
time when I possessed the unprized treasures of youth: 
spirits, hope, and abounding conceit. As these memo- 
ries, with the courage (to use a mild term) that a college 
background gives, are about all that I got out of my 
life there, I shall dwell on them only enough to intro- 
duce two or three friends and one enemy, who played 
later a very considerable part in my life. 

My family was an old and distinguished one; that 
is, it could be traced back about two hundred years, and 
several of my ancestors had accomplished enough to be 
known in the history of the State — a fact of which I was 
1 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

so proud that I was quite satisfied at college to rest on 
their achievements, and felt no need to add to its dis- 
tinction by any labors of my own. 

We had formerly been well off ; we had, indeed, at one 
time prior to the Revolutionary War, owned large estates 
— a time to which I was so fond of referring when I first 
went to college that one of my acquaintances, named 
Peck, an envious fellow, observed one day that I thought 
I had inherited all the kingdoms of the earth and the 
glory of them. My childhood was spent on an old 
plantation, so far removed from anything that I have 
since known that it might almost have been in another 
planet. 

It happened that I was the only child of my parents 
who survived, the others having been carried off in 
early childhood by a scourge of scarlet fever, to which 
circumstance, as I look back, I now know was due my 
mother’s sadness of expression when my father was 
not present. I was thus subjected to the perils and 
great misfortune of being an only child, among them 
that of thinking the sun rises and sets for his especial 
benefit. I must say that both my father and mother 
tried faithfully to do their part to counteract this danger, 
and they not only believed firmly in, but acted consist- 
ently on, the Solomonic doctrine that to spare the rod 
is to spoil the child. My father, I must say, was more 
lenient, and I think gladly evaded the obligation as in- 
terpreted by my mother, declaring that Solomon, like a 
good many other persons, was much wiser in speech 
than in practice. He was fond of quoting the custom 
2 


MY FIRST FAILURE 


of the ancient Scythians, who trained their youth to 
ride, to shoot, and to speak the truth. And in this 
last particular he was inexorable. 

Among my chief intimates as a small boy was a little 
darkey named “Jeams.” Jeams was the grandson of 
one of our old servants — Uncle Ralph Woodson. Jeams, 
who was a few years my senior, was a sharp-witted boy, 
as black as a piece of old mahogany, and had a head so 
hard that he could butt a plank off a fence. Naturally 
he and I became cronies, and he picked up information 
on various subjects so readily that I found him equally 
agreeable and useful. 

My father was admirably adapted to the conditions 
that had created such a character, but as unsuited to 
the new conditions that succeeded the collapse of the 
old life as a shorn lamb would be to the untempered 
wind of winter. He was a Whig and an aristocrat of 
the strongest type, and though in practice he was the 
kindest and most liberal of men, he always maintained 
that a gentleman was the choicest fruit of civilization; 
a standard, I may say, in which the personal element 
counted with him far more than family connection. 
“A king can make a nobleman, sir,” he used to say; 
“but it takes Jehovah to make a gentleman.” When 
the war came, though he was opposed to “ Locofocoism ” 
as he termed it, he enlisted as a private as soon as the 
State seceded, and fought through the war, rising to be 
a major and surrendering at Appomattox. When the 
war closed, he shut himself up on his estate, accepting 
the situation without moroseness, and consoling himself 
3 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

with a philosophy much more misanthropic in expres- 
sion than in practice. 

My father’s slender patrimony had been swept away 
by the war, but, being a scholar himself, and having 
a high idea of classical learning and a good estimate of 
my abilities — in which latter view I entirely agreed with 
him — he managed by much stinting to send me to col- 
lege out of the fragments of his establishment. I 
admired greatly certain principles which were stamped 
in him as firmly as a fossil is embedded in the solid 
rock; but I fear I had a certain contempt for what ap- 
peared to me his inadequacy to the new state of things, 
and I secretly plumed myself on my superiority to him 
in all practical affairs. Without the least appreciation 
of the sacrifices he was making to send me to college, 
I was an idle dog and plunged into the amusements of 
the gay set — that set whose powers begin below their 
foreheads — in which I became a member and aspired 
to be a leader. 

My first episode at college brought me some eclat . 


4 


II 


THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 

I arrived rather late and the term had already begun, 
so that all the desirable rooms had been taken. I was 
told that I would either have to room out of college or 
take quarters with a young man by the name of Wolffert 
— like myself, a freshman. I naturally chose the latter. 
On reaching my quarters, I found my new comrade to 
be an affable, gentlemanly fellow, and very nice looking. 
Indeed, his broad brow, with curling brown hair above it; 
his dark eyes, deep and luminous; a nose the least bit 
too large and inclining to be aquiline; a well-cut mouth 
with mobile, sensitive lips, and a finely chiselled jaw, 
gave him an unusual face, if not one of distinction. He 
was evidently bent on making himself agreeable to me, 
and as he had read an extraordinary amount for a lad 
of his age and I, who had also read some, was lonely, 
we had passed a pleasant evening when he mentioned 
casually a fact which sent my heart down into my 
boots. He was a Jew. This, then, accounted for the 
ridge of his well-carved nose, and the curl of his soft 
brown hair. I tried to be as frank and easy as I had 
been before, but it was a failure. He saw my surprise 
as I saw his disappointment — a coolness took the place 
of the warmth that had been growing up between us 
for several hours, and we passed a stiff evening. He 
had already had one room-mate. 

5 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Next day, I found a former acquaintance who offered 
to take me into his apartment, and that afternoon, hav- 
ing watched for my opportunity, I took advantage of 
my room-mate’s absence and moved out, leaving a short 
note saying that I had discovered an old friend who was 
very desirous that I should share his quarters. When I 
next met Wolffert, he was so stiff, that although I felt 
sorry for him and was ready to be as civil as I might, our 
acquaintance thereafter became merely nominal. I saw 
in fact, little of him during the next months, for he soon 
forged far ahead of me. There was, indeed, no one in 
his class who possessed his acquirements or his ability. 
I used to see him for a while standing in his doorway 
looking wistfully out at the groups of students gathered 
under the trees, or walking alone, like Isaac in the fields, 
and until I formed my own set, I would have gone and 
joined him or have asked him to join us but for his 
rebuff. I knew that he was lonely ; for I soon discovered 
that the cold shoulder was being given to him by most of 
the students. I could not, however, but feel that it 
served him right for the “airs” he put on with me. 
That he made a brilliant exhibition in his classes and 
was easily the cleverest man in the class did not affect 
our attitude toward him; perhaps, it only aggravated 
the case. Why should he be able to make easily a 
demonstration at the blackboard that the cleverest of us 
only bungled through ? One day, however, we learned 
that the Jew had a room-mate. Bets were freely taken 
that he would not stick, but he stuck — for it was John 
Marvel. Not that any of us knew what John Marvel 
6 


THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 

was ; for even I, who, except Wolffert, came to know 
him best, did not divine until many years later what a 
nugget of un wrought gold that homely, shy, awkward 
John Marvel was! 

It appeared that Wolffert had a harder time than any 
of us dreamed of. 

He had come to the institution against the advice of 
his father, and for a singular reason: he thought it 
the most liberal institution of learning in the country! 
Little he knew of the narrowness of youth! His mind 
was so receptive that all that passed through it was 
instantly appropriated. Like a plant, he drew suste- 
nance from the atmosphere about him and transmuted 
what was impalpable to us to forms of beauty. He 
was even then a man of independent thought; a 
dreamer who peopled the earth with ideals, and saw 
beneath the stony surface of the commonplace the 
ideals and principles that were to reconstruct and resur- 
rect the world. An admirer of the Law in its ideal 
conception, he reprobated, with the fury of the Baptist, 
the generation that had belittled and cramped it to an 
instrument of torture of the human mind, and looked 
to the millenial coming of universal brotherhood and 
freedom. 

His father was a leading man in his city; one who, 
by his native ability and the dynamic force that seems 
to be a characteristic of the race, had risen from poverty 
to the position of chief merchant and capitalist of the 
town in which he lived. He had been elected mayor 
in a time of stress; but his popularity among the citizens 
7 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

generally had cost him, as I learned later, something 
among his own people. The breadth of his views had 
not been approved by them. 

The abilities that in the father had taken this direction 
of the mingling of the practical and the theoretical had, 
in the son, taken the form I have stated. He was an 
idealist: a poet and a dreamer. 

The boy from the first had discovered powers that 
had given his father the keenest delight, not unmingled 
with a little misgiving. As he grew up among the best 
class of boys in his town, and became conscious that he 
was not one of them, his inquiring and aspiring mind 
began early to seek the reasons for the difference. Why 
should he be held a little apart from them ? He was a 
Jew. Yes, but why should a Jew be held apart? 
They talked about their families. Why, his family 
could trace back for two thousand and more years to 
princes and kings. They had a different religion. 
But he saw other boys with different religions going and 
playing together. They were Christians, and believed 
in Christ, while the Jew, etc. This puzzled him till he 
found that some of them — a few — did not hold the 
same views of Christ with the others. Then he began 
to study for himself, boy as he was, the history of Christ, 
and out of it came questions that his father could not 
answer and was angry that he should put to him. He 
went to a young Rabbi who told him that Christ was 
a good man, but mistaken in His claims. 

So, the boy drifted a little apart from his own people, 
and more and more he studied the questions that arose 
8 


THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 


in his mind, and more and more he suffered; but more 
and more he grew strong. 

The father, too proud of his son’s independence to 
coerce him by an order which might have been a law 
to him, had, nevertheless, thrown him on his own 
resources and cut him down to the lowest figure on which 
he could live, confident that his own opinions would be 
justified and his son return home. 

Wolffert’s first experience very nearly justified this 
conviction. The fact that a Jew had come and taken 
one of the old apartments spread through the college 
with amazing rapidity and created a sensation. Not 
that there had not been Jews there before, for there had 
been a number there at one time or another. But they 
were members of families of distinction, who had been 
known for generations as bearing their part in all the 
appointments of life, and had consorted with other folk 
on an absolute equality; so that there was little or 
nothing to distinguish them as Israelites except their 
name. If they were Israelites, it was an accident and 
played no larger part in their views than if they had 
been Scotch or French. But here was a man who pro- 
claimed himself a Jew; who proposed that it should 
ke known, and evidently meant to assert his rights and 
peculiarities on all occasions. The result was that he 
was subjected to a species of persecution which only the 
young Anglo-Saxon, the most brutal of all animals, 
could have devised. 

As college filled rapidly, it soon became necessary to 
double up, that is, put two men in one apartment. 

9 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

The first student assigned to live with Wolffert was 
Peck, a sedate and cool young man — like myself, from 
the country, and like myself, very short of funds. Peck 
would not have minded rooming with a Jew, or, for 
that matter, with the Devil, if he had thought he could 
get anything out of him ; for he had few prejudices, and 
when it came to calculation, he was the multiplication- 
table. But Peck had his way to make, and he coolly 
decided that a Jew was likely to make him bear his 
full part of the expenses — which he never had any 
mind to do. So he looked around, and within forty- 
eight hours moved to a place out of college where he got 
reduced board on the ground of belonging to some 
peculiar set of religionists, of which I am convinced he 
had never heard till he learned of the landlady's 
idiosyncrasy. 

I had incurred Peck’s lasting enmity — though I did 
not know it at the time — by a witticism at his expense. 
We had never taken to each other from the first, and 
one evening, when someone was talking about Wolffert, 
Peck joined in and said that that institution was no place 
for any Jew. I said, “Listen to Peck sniff. Peck, 
how did you get in?” This raised a laugh. Peck, I 
am sure, had never read “Martin Chuzzlewit”; but I am 
equally sure he read it afterward, for he never forgave me. 

Then came my turn and desertion which I have 
described. And then, after that interval of loneliness, 
appeared John Marvel. 

Wolffert, who was one of the most social men I ever 
knew, was sitting in his room meditating on the strange 
10 


THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 


fate that had made him an outcast among the men whom 
he had come there to study and know. This was my 
interpretation of his thoughts : he would probably have 
said he was thinking of the strange prejudices of the 
human race — prejudices to which he had been in some 
sort a victim all his life, as his race had been all through 
the ages. He was steeped in loneliness, and as, in the 
mellow October afternoon, the sound of good-fellow- 
ship floated in at his window from the lawn outside, 
be grew more and more dejected. One evening it 
culminated. He even thought of writing to his father 
that he would come home and go into his office and 
accept the position that meant wealth and luxury and 
power. Just then there was a step outside, and some- 
one stopped and after a moment, knocked at the door. 
Wolffert rose and opened it and stood facing a new 
student — a florid, round-faced, round-bodied, bow- 
legged, blue-eyed, awkward lad of about his own age. 

“ Is this number ? ” demanded the new-comer, 

peering curiously at the dingy door and half shyly 
looking up at the occupant. 

“It is. Why?” Wolffert spoke abruptly. 

“Well, I have been assigned to this apartment by the 
Proctor. I am a new student and have just come. 
My name is Marvel — John Marvel.” Wolffert put his 
arms across the doorway and stood in the middle of it. 

“Well, I want to tell you before you come in that I 
am a Jew. You are welcome not to come, but if you 
come I want you to stay.” Perhaps the other’s aston- 
ishment contained a query, for he went on hotly; 

11 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I have had two men come here already and both of 
them left after one day. The first said he got cheaper 
board, which was a legitimate excuse — if true — the other 
said he had found an old friend who wanted him. I 
am convinced that he lied and that the only reason he 
left was that I am a Jew. And now you can come in or 
not, as you please, but if you come you must stay.” 
He was looking down in John Marvel's eyes with a 
gaze that had the concentrated bitterness of generations 
in it, and the latter met it with a gravity that deepened 
into pity. 

“I will come in and I will stay; Jesus was a Jew,” 
said the man on the lower step. 

“I do not know him,” said the other bitterly. 

“But you will. I know Him.” 

Wolffert’s arms fell and John Marvel entered and 
stayed. 

That evening the two men went to the supper hall 
together. Their table was near mine and they were the 
observed of all observers. The one curious thing was 
that John Marvel was studying for the ministry. It 
lent zest to the jokes that were made on this incongruous 
pairing, and jests, more or less insipid, were made on 
the Law and the Prophets; the lying down together of 
the lion and the lamb, etc. 

It was a curious mating — the light-haired, moon- 
faced, slow-witted Saxon, and the dark, keen Jew with 
his intellectual face and his deep-burning eyes in which 
glowed the misery and mystery of the ages. 

John Marvel soon became well known; for he was 

12 


THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 


one of the slowest men in the college. With his amus- 
ing awkwardness, he would have become a butt except 
for his imperturbable good-humor. As it was, he was 
for a time a sort of object of ridicule to many of us — 
myself among the number — and we had many laughs 
at him. He would disappear on Saturday night and 
not turn up again till Monday morning, dusty and di- 
sheveled. And many jests were made at his expense. 
One said that Marvel was practising preaching in the 
mountains with a view to becoming a second Demos- 
thenes; another suggested that, if so, the mountains 
would probably get up and run into the sea. 

When, however, it was discovered later that he had a 
Sunday-school in the mountains, and walked twelve 
miles out and twelve miles back, most of the gibers, ex- 
cept the inveterate humorists like myself, were silent. 

This fact came out by chance. Marvel disappeared 
from college one day and remained away for two or 
three weeks. Wolffert either could not or would not 
give any account of him. When Marvel returned, he 
looked worn and ill, as if he had been starving, and 
almost immediately he was taken ill and went to the 
infirmary with a case of fever. Here he was so ill that 
the doctors quarantined him and no one saw him except 
the nurse — old Mrs. Denny, a wrinkled and bald- 
headed, old, fat woman, something between a lightwood 
knot and an angel — and Wolffert. 

Wolffert moved down and took up his quarters in the 
infirmary — it was suggested, with a view to converting 
Marvel to Judaism — and here he stayed. The nursing 
13 


JOHN MARVEL/ASSISTANT 

never appeared to make any difference in Wolff ert’s 
preparation for his classes; for when he came back he 
still stood easily first. But poor Marvel never caught 
up again, and was even more hopelessly lost in the be- 
fogged region at the bottom of the class than ever 
before. When called on to recite, his brow would 
pucker and he would perspire and stammer until the 
class would be in ill -suppressed convulsions, all the 
more enjoyable because of Leo Wolffert’s agonizing 
over his wretchedness. Then Marvel, excused by the 
professor, would sit down and mop his brow and beam 
quite as if he had made a wonderful performance (which 
indeed, he had), while Wolffert’s thin face would grow 
whiter, his nostrils quiver, and his deep eyes burn like 
coals. 

One day a spare, rusty man with a frowzy beard, and 
a lank, stooping woman strolled into the college grounds, 
and after wandering around aimlessly for a time, asked 
for Mr. Marvel. Each of them carried a basket. 
They were directed to his room and remained with him 
some time, and when they left, he walked some distance 
with them. 

It was at first rumored and then generally reported 
that they were Marvel’s father and mother. It became 
known later that they were a couple of poor mountain- 
eers named Shiflett, whose child John Marvel had 
nursed when it had the fever. They had just learned 
of his illness and had come down to bring him some 
chickens and other things which they thought he might 
need. 


14 


THE JEW AND THE CHRISTIAN 


This incident, with the knowledge of Marvel’s de^ 
votion, made some impression on us, and gained 
for Marvel, and incidentally for Wolffert, some sort 
of respect 


THE FIGHT 


All this time I was about as far aloof from Marvel 
and Wolffert as I was from any one in the college. 

I rather liked Marvel, partly because he appeared 
to like me and I helped him in his Latin, and partly 
because Peck sniffed at him, and Peck I cordially dis- 
liked for his cold-blooded selfishness and his plodding 
way. 

I was strong and active and fairly good-looking, 
though by no means so handsome as I fancied myself 
when I passed the large plate-glass windows in the 
stores; I was conceited, but not arrogant except to my 
family and those I esteemed my inferiors; was a good 
poker-player; was open-handed enough, for it cost me 
nothing; and was inclined to be kind by nature. 

I had, moreover, several accomplishments which led 
to a certain measure of popularity. I had a retentive 
memory, and could get up a recitation with little trouble; 
though I forgot about as quickly as I learned. I could 
pick a little on a banjo; could spout fluently what 
sounded like a good speech if one did not listen to me; 
could write, what someone has said, looked at a distance 
like poetry and, thanks to my father, could both fence 
and read Latin. These accomplishments served to 
bring me into the best set in college and, in time, to 


THE FIGHT 


undo me. For there is nothing more dangerous to a 
young man than an exceptional social accomplishment 
A tenor voice is almost as perilous as a taste for drink; 
and to play the guitar, about as seductive as to play 
poker. 

I was soon to know Wolffert better. He and Marvel, 
after their work became known, had been admitted 
rather more within the circle, though they were still kept 
near the perimeter. And thus, as the spring came on, 
when we all assembled on pleasant afternoons under 
the big trees that shaded the green slopes above the 
athletic field, even Wolffert and Marvel were apt to 
join us. I would long ago have made friends with 
Wolffert, as some others had done since he distinguished 
himself; for I had been ashamed of my poltroonery in 
leaving him; but, though he was affable enough with 
others, he always treated me with such marked reserve 
that I had finally abandoned my charitable effort to be 
on easy terms with him. 

One spring afternoon we were all loafing under the 
trees, many of us stretched out on the grass. I had 
just saved a game of baseball by driving a ball that 
brought in three men from the bases, and I was sur- 
rounded by quite a group. Marvel, who was as strong 
as an ox, was second-baseman on the other nine and 
had missed the ball as the center-fielder threw it wildly. 
Something was said — I do not recall what — and I 
raised a laugh at Marvel’s expense, in which he joined 
heartily. Then a discussion began on the merits in 
which Wolffert joined. I started it, but as Wolffert 
17 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

appeared excited, I drew out and left it to my 
friends. 

Presently, at something Wolffert said, I turned to a 
friend, Sam Pleasants, and said in a half-aside, with a 
sneer: “He did not see it; Sam, you — ” I nodded my 
head, meaning, “You explain it.” 

Suddenly, Wolffert rose to his feet and, without a 
word of warning, poured out on me such a torrent of 
abuse as I never heard before or since. His least epithet 
was a deadly insult. It was out of a clear sky, and for 
a moment my breath was quite taken away. I sprang 
to my feet and, with a roar of rage, made a rush for 
him. But he was ready, and with a step to one side, 
planted a straight blow on my jaw that, catching me 
unprepared, sent me full length on my back. I was 
up in a second and made another rush for him, only to 
be caught in the same way and sent down again. 

When I rose the second time, I was cooler. I knew 
then that I was in for it. Those blows were a boxer’s. 
They came straight from the shoulder and were as 
quick as lightning, with every ounce of the giver’s 
weight behind them. By this time, however, the crowd 
had interfered. This was no place for a fight, they 
said. The professors would come on us. Several 
were holding me and as many more had Wolffert; 
among them, John Marvel, who could have lifted him 
in his strong arms and held him as a baby. Marvel was 
pleading with him with tears in his eyes. Wolffert was 
cool enough now, but he took no heed of his friend’s 
entreaties. Standing quite still, with the blaze in his 
18 


THE FIGHT 


eyes all the more vivid because of the pallor of his face, 
he was looking over his friend’s head and was cursing 
me with all the eloquence of a rich vocabulary. So far 
as he was concerned, there might not have been another 
man but myself within a mile. 

In a moment an agreement was made by which we 
were to adjourn to a retired spot and fight it out. 
Something that he said led someone to suggest that 
we settle it with pistols. It was Peck’s voice. Wolffert 
sprang at it. “I will, if I can get any gentleman to 
represent me,” he said with a bitter sneer, casting his 
flashing, scornful eyes around on the crowd. “I have 
only one friend and I will not ask him to do it.” 

“ I will represent you,” said Peck, who had his own 
reasons for the offer. 

“All right. When and where ?” said I. 

“Now, and in the railway-cut beyond the wood,” 
said Wolffert. 

We retired to two rooms in a neighboring dormitory 
to arrange matters. Peck and another volunteer repre- 
sented Wolffert, and Sam Pleasants and Harry Houston 
were my seconds. I had expected that some attempt 
at reconciliation would be made; but there was no 
suggestion of it. I never saw such cold-blooded young 
ruffians as all our seconds were, and when Peck came 
to close the final cartel he had an air between that of a 
butcher and an undertaker. He looked at me exactly 
as a butcher does at a fatted calf. He positively licked 
his chops. I did not want to shoot Wolffert, but I 
could cheerfully have murdered Peck. While, however, 
19 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

the arrangements were being made by our friends, I 
had had a chance for some reflection and I had used 
it. I knew that Wolffert did not like me. He had no 
reason to do so, for I had not only left him, but had been 
cold and distant with him. Still, I had always treated 
him civilly, and had spoken of him respectfully, which 
was more than Peck had always done. Yet, here, 
without the least provocation, he had insulted me 
grossly. I knew there must be some misunderstanding, 
and I determined on my “own hook” to find out what 
it was. Fortune favored me. Just then Wolffert 
opened the door. He had gone to his own room for a 
few moments and, on his return, mistook the number 
and opened the wrong door. Seeing his error, he drew 
back with an apology, and was just closing the door 
when I called him. 

“ Wolffert 1 Come in here a moment. I want to 
speak to you alone.” 

He re-entered and closed the door; standing stiff 
and silent. 

“Wolffert, there has been some mistake, and I want 
to know what it is.” He made not the least sign that 
he heard, except a flash, deep in his eyes, like a streak 
of lightning in a far-off cloud. 

“I am ready to fight you in any way you wish,” I 
went on. “But I want to know what the trouble is. 
Why did you insult me out of a clear sky ? What had 
I done?” 

“Everything.” 

“What! Specify. What was it?” 

20 



Wolffert . . . was cursing me with all the eloquence of 
a rich vocabulary. 















. 




































































THE FIGHT 


“You have made my life Hell — all of you!” His 
face worked, and he made a wild sweep with his arm 
and brought it back to his side with clenched fist. 

“But I?” 

“You were the head. You have all done it. You 
have treated me as an outcast — a Jew! You have 
given me credit for nothing, because I was a Jew. I 
could have stood the personal contempt and insult, and 
I have tried to stand it; but I will put up with it no 
longer. It is appointed once for a man to die, and I 
can die in no better cause than for my people.” 

He was gasping with suppressed emotion, and I was 
beginning to gasp also — but for a different reason. He 
went on: 

“You thought I was a coward because I was a Jew, 
and because I wanted peace — treated me as a poltroon 
because I was a Jew. And I made up my mind to 
stop it. So this evening my chance came. That is all.” 

“But what have I done?” 

“Nothing more than you have always done; treated 
the Jew with contempt. But they were all there, and I 
chose you as the leader when you said that about the 
Jew.” 

“I said nothing about a Jew. Here, wait! Did you 
think I insulted you as a Jew this afternoon?” I had 
risen and walked over in front of him. 

“Yes.” He bowed. 

“Well, I did not.” 

“You did— you said to Sam Pleasants that I was a 
' damned Jew.’” 


21 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Whatl I never said a word like it — yes, I did — I 
said to Sam Pleasants, that you did not see the play, and 
said, ‘ Sam, you — ’ meaning, you, tell him/ Wait. Let 
me think a moment. Wolffert, I owe you an apology, 
and will make it. I know there are some who will 
think I do it because I am afraid to fight. But I do not 
care. I am not, and I will fight Peck if he says so. If 
you will come with me, I will make you a public apology, 
and then if you want to fight still, I will meet you.” 

He suddenly threw his right arm up across his face, 
and, turning his back on me, leaned on it against the 
door, his whole person shaken with sobs. 

I walked up close to him and laid my hand on his 
shoulder, helplessly. 

“ Calm yourself,” I began, but could think of nothing 
else to say. 

He shook for a moment and then, turning, with his 
left arm still across his face, he held out his right hand, 
and I took it. 

“I do not want you to do that. All I want is decent 
treatment — ordinary civility,” he faltered between his 
sobs. Then he turned back and leant against the door, 
for he could scarcely stand. And so standing, he made 
the most forcible, the most eloquent, and the most 
burning defence of his people I have ever heard. 

“They have civilized the world,” he declared, “and 
what have they gotten from it but brutal barbarism. 
They gave you your laws and your literature, your 
morality and your religion — even your Christ; and you 
have violated every law, human and divine, in their 
22 


THE FIGHT 


oppression. You invaded our land, ravaged our coun- 
try, and scattered us over the face of the earth, trying 
to destroy our very name and Nation. But the God 
of Israel was our refuge and consolation. You cru- 
cified Jesus and then visited it on us. You have 
perpetuated an act of age-long hypocrisy, and have, 
in the name of the Prince of Peace, brutalized over 
his people. The cross was your means of punishment 
— no Jew ever used it. But if we had crucified him it 
would have been in the name of Law aj&d Order; your 
crucifixion was in the name of Contempt; and you 
have crucified a whole people through the ages — the 
one people who have ever stood for the one God; who 
have stood for Morality and for Peace. A Jew! Yes, 
I am a Jew. I thank the God of Israel that I am. For 
as he saved the world in the past, so he will save it in 
the future.” 

This was only a part of it, and not the best part; but 
it gave me a new insight into his mind. 

When he was through I was ready. I had reached 
my decision. 

“I will go with you,” I said, “not on your account, 
but on my own, and make my statement before the 
whole crowd. They are still on the hill. Then, if any 
one wants to fight, he can get it. I will fight Peck.” 

He repeated that he did not want me to do this, and 
he would not go; which was as well, for I might not 
have been able to say so much in his presence. So I 
went alone with my seconds, whom I immediately 
sought. 


23 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I found the latter working over a cartel at a table 
in the next room, and I walked in. They looked as 
solemn as owls, but I broke them up in a moment. 

“You can stop this infernal foolishness. I have 
apologized to Wolffert. I have treated him like a pig, 
and so have you. And I have told him so, and now I 
am going out to tell the other fellows.” 

Their astonishment was unbounded and, at least, 
one of the group was sincerely disappointed. I saw 
Peck’s face fall at my words and then he elevated his 
nose and gave a little sniff. 

“Well, it did not come from our side,” he said in a 
half undertone with a sneer. 

I suddenly exploded. His cold face was so evil. 

“No, it did not. I made it freely and frankly, and 
I am going to make it publicly. But if you are disap- 
pointed, I want to tell you that you can have a little 
affair on your own account. And in order that there 
may be no want of pretext, I wish to tell you that I 
believe you have been telling lies on me, and I consider 
you a damned, sneaking hypocrite.” 

There was a commotion, of course, and the others 
all jumped in between us. And when it was over, I 
walked out. Three minutes later I was on the hill 
among the crowd, which now numbered several hun- 
dred, for they were all waiting to learn the result; and, 
standing on a bench, I told them what I had said to 
Wolffert and how I felt I owed him a public apology, 
not for one insult, but for a hundred. There was a 
silence for a second, and then such a cheer broke out as 
24 


THE FIGHT 


I never got any other time in my life! Cheers for Wolf- 
fert — cheers for Marvel, and even cheers for me. And 
then a freckled youth with a big mouth and a blue, 
merry eye broke the tension by saying: 

“All bets are off and we sha’n’t have a holiday to- 
morrow at all.” The reprobates had been betting on 
which of us would fall, and had been banking on a 
possible holiday. 

Quite a crowd went to Wolffert’s room to make atone- 
ment for any possible slight they had put on him; but 
he was nowhere to be found. But that night, he and 
Marvel sat at our table and always sat there afterward. 
He illustrated George Borrow’s observation that 
good manners and a knowledge of boxing will take 
one through the world. 


25 


IV 


DELILAH 

My career at college promised at one time after 
that to be almost creditable, but it ended in nothing. 
I was not a good student, because, I flattered myself, 
I was too good a fellow. I loved pleasure too much to 
apply myself to work, and was too self-indulgent to 
deny myself anything. I despised the plodding ways 
of cold-blooded creatures like Peck even more than I 
did the dullness of John Marvel. Why should I delve 
at Latin and Greek and Mathematics when I had all 
the poets and novelists. I was sure that when the 
time came I could read up and easily overtake and 
surpass the tortoise-like monotony of Peck’s plodding. 
I now and then had an uneasy realization that Peck was 
developing, and that John Marvel, to whom I used to 
read Latin, had somehow come to understand the 
language better than I. However, this was only an 
occasional awakening, and the idea was too unpleasant 
for me to harbor it long. Meantime, I would enjoy 
myself and prepare to bear off the more shining honors 
of the orator and society-medalist. 

At the very end I did, indeed, arouse myself, for I had 
a new incentive. I fell in love. Toward the mid- 
session holiday the place always filled up with pretty 
26 


DELILAH 


girls. Usually they came just after “the exams”; but 
occasionally some of them came a little in advance: 
those who were bent on conquest. At such times, only 
cold anchorites like Marvel, or calculating machines 
like Peck, stuck to their books. Among the fair visitants 
this year was one whose reputation for beauty had 
already preceded her: Miss Lilian Poole. She was 
the daughter of a banker in the capital of the State, and 
by all accounts was a tearing belle. She had created a 
sensation at the Mardi Gras the year before, and one 
who could do that must be a beauty. She was reported 
more beautiful than Isabelle Henderson, the noted 
beauty of the Crescent city, whom she was said to 
resemble. Certainly, she was not lacking in either 
looks or intelligence; for those who had caught a 
glimpse of her, declared her a Goddess. I immediately 
determined that I would become her cavalier for the 
occasion. And I so announced to the dozen or more 
fellows who composed our set. They laughed at me. 

“Why, you do not know her.” 

“But I shall know her.” 

“You are not on speaking terms with Professor 
Sterner” — the Professor of Mathematics at whose house 
she was stopping. The Professor, a logarithmic ma- 
chine, and I had had a falling out not long before. 
He had called on me for a recitation, one morning 
after a dance, and I had said, “I am not prepared, sir.” 

“You never are prepared,” he said, which the class 
appeared to think amusing. He glanced over the room. 

“Mr. Peck.” 


27 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Peck, also, had been at the dance the night before, 
though he said he had a headache, and caused much 
amusement by his gambols and antics, which were like 
those of a cow; I therefore expected him to say, “ un- 
prepared ” also. But not so. 

“I was unwell last night, sir.” 

“ Ah! Well, I am glad, at least, that you have some 
sort of a legitimate excuse.” 

I flamed out and rose to my feet. 

“Are you alluding to me, sir?” 

“Take your seat, sir. I deny your right to question 
me.” 

“I will not take my seat. I do not propose to sit 
still and be insulted. I demand an answer to my 
question.” • 

“Take your seat, I say. I will report you to the 
Faculty,” he shouted. 

“Then you will have to do so very quickly; for I 
shall report you immediately.” And with that, I 
stalked out of the room. The Faculty met that after- 
noon and I laid my complaint before them, and as the 
students, knowing the inside facts, took my side, the 
Faculty held that the Professor committed the first 
breach and reprimanded us both. I was well satisfied 
after I had met and cut the Professor publicly. 

I now acknowledge the untowardness of the situa- 
tion; but when the boys laughed, I pooh-poohed it. 

“I do not speak to old Sterner, but I will speak to 
her the first time I meet her.” 

“I will bet you do not,” cried Sam Pleasants. 

28 


DELILAH 


“ Supper for the crowd,” chimed in several. They 
were always as ready to bet as their long-haired ances- 
tors were in the German forests, where they bet them- 
selves away, and kept their faith, to the amazement of 
a Roman gentleman, who wrote, “istam vocant fidem” 

We were all in a room, the windows of which looked 
across the lawn toward the pillared portico of Professor 
Sterner’s house, and some of the boys were gazing over 
toward the mansion that sheltered the subject of our 
thoughts. And as it happened, at that moment, the 
door opened and out stepped the young lady herself, in 
a smart walking costume, topped by a large hat with a 
great, drooping, beguiling, white ostrich feather. An 
exclamation drew us all to the window. 

“There she is now!” Without doubt, that was she. 

“Jove! What a stunner!” 

“She is alone. There is your chance.” 

“Yes, this is the first time you have seen her; now 
stop jawing and play ball.” 

“Or pay up.” 

“Yes, supper for the crowd: porterhouse steak; 
chicken, and waffles to end with.” 

So they nagged me, one and all. 

“Done,” I said, “I will do it now.” 

“You have never seen her before?” 

“Never.” I was arranging my tie and brushing my 
hair. 

“You swear it?” 

But I hurried out of the door and slammed it behind 


me. 


29 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I turned down the walk that led across the campus 
to the point whither Miss Poole was directing her steps, 
and I took a gait that I judged should meet her at the 
intersection of the walks. I was doing some hard 
thinking, for I knew the window behind me was 
crowded with derisive faces. 

As I approached her, I cut my eye at her, and a 
glance nearly overthrew my resolution. She was, in- 
deed, a charming picture as she advanced, though I 
caught little more than a general impression of a slim, 
straight, statuesque figure, a pink face, surmounted by 
a profusion of light hair, under a big hat with white 
feathers, and a pair of bluish eyes. I glanced away, 
but not before she had caught my eye. Just then a 
whistle sounded behind me, and my nerve returned. 
I suddenly quickened my pace, and held out my hand. 

“Why, how do you do?” I exclaimed with well- 
feigned surprise and pleasure, plumping myself directly 
in front of her. She paused; looked at me, hesitated, 
and then drew back slightly. 

“I think — , I — . You have made a mistake, I think.” 

“Why, do you not remember Henry Glave? Is this 
not Miss Belle Henderson?” I asked in a mystified 
way. 

“No, I am not Miss Henderson.” 

“Oh! I beg your pardon — I thought — ” I began. 
Then, as I moved back a little, I added, “Then you 
must be Miss Lilian Poole; for there cannot be more 
than two like you on earth. I beg your pardon.” 

I backed away. 


30 


DELILAH 


“ I am,” she said. Her mounting color showed that 
she was at least not angry, and she gave proof of it. 

“Can you tell me? Is not that the way to Dr. 
Davis’s house?” 

“Yes — I will show you which it is.” My manner 
had become most respectful. 

“Oh! Don’t trouble yourself, I beg you.” 

“It is not the least trouble,” I said sincerely, and it 
was the only truth I had told. I walked back a few 
steps, hat in hand, pointing eagerly to the house. And 
as I left, I said, “I hope you will pardon my stupid 
mistake.” 

“Oh! I do not think it stupid. She is a beauty.” 

(i I think so.” I bowed low. I saw the color rise 
again as I turned away, much pleased with myself, and 
yet a good deal ashamed, too. 

When I returned to “the lair,” as we termed Sam 
Pleasants’s room, the boys seized me. They were like 
howling dervishes. But I had grown serious. I was 
very much ashamed of myself. And I did the only 
decent thing I could — I lied, or as good as lied. 

“I will give the supper if you will stop this yelling. 
Do you suppose I would make a bet about a girl I did 
not know?” 

This took the spirit out of the thing, and only one of 
them knew the truth. Marvel, who was present, looked 
at me seriously, and that night said to me half sadly, 

“You ought not to have done that.” 

“What? I know it. It was an ungentlemanly 
thing.” 


31 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I do not mean that. You ought not to have told 
a story afterward.” 

How he knew it I never knew. 

But I had gotten caught in my own mesh. I had 
walked into the little parlor without any invitation, and 
I was soon hopelessly entangled in the web at which I 
had hitherto scoffed. I fell violently in love. 

I soon overcame the little difficulty that stood in my 
way. And, indeed, I think Miss Lilian Poole rather 
helped me out about this. I did not allow grass to grow 
under my feet, or any impression I had made to become 
effaced. I quickly became acquainted with my Diana- 
like young lady; that is, to speak more exactly, I got 
myself presented to her, for my complete acquaintance 
with her was of later date, when I had spent all the 
little patrimony I had. I saw immediately that she 
knew the story of the wager, though she did not at that 
time refer to it, and so far as I could tell, she did not 
resent it. She, at least, gave no sign of it. I asked her 
to allow me to escort her to a German, but she had an 
engagement. 

“ Who is it ? ” I inquired rather enviously. 

She had a curious expression in her eyes — which, by 
the way, were a cool blue or gray, I never could be 
sure which, and at times looked rather like steel. 

She hesitated a moment and her little mouth drew in 
somewhat closely. 

“Mr. Peck.” Her voice was a singular instrument. 
It had so great a compass and possessed some notes 
that affected me strangely; but it also could be without 
32 


DELILAH 


the least expression. So it was now when she said, “ Mr. 
Peck,” but she colored slightly, as I burst out laughing. 

“Peck! Pecksniff? Did you ever see him dance? 
I should as soon have thought of your dancing with a 
clothes-horse.” 

She appeared somewhat troubled. 

“Does he dance so badly as that? He told me he 
danced.” 

“So he does — like this.” I gave an imitation of 
Peck’s gyrations, in which I was so earnest that I 
knocked over a table and broke a fine lamp, to my great 
consternation. 

“Well, you are realistic,” observed Miss Poole, 
calmly, who struck me as not so much concerned at 
my misfortune as I might have expected. When, 
however, she saw how really troubled I was, she was 
more sympathetic. 

“Perhaps, if we go out, they will not know who did 
it,” she observed. 

“Well, no, I could not do that,” I said, thinking of 
Peck, and then as her expression did not change, I fired 
a shot that I meant to tell. “Peck would do that sort 
of thing. I shall tell them.” 

To this she made no reply. She only looked in- 
scrutably pretty. But it often came back to me 
afterward how calmly and quite as a matter of course 
she suggested my concealing the accident, and I won- 
dered if she thought I was a liar. 

She had a countenance that I once thought one of the 
most beautiful in the world; but which changed rarely. 
33 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Its only variations were from an infantile beauty to a 
statuesque firmness. 

Yet that girl, with her rather set expression and 
infantile face, her wide open, round eyes and pink 
prettiness, was as deep as a well, and an artesian well 
at that. 

I soon distanced all rivals. Peck was quickly dis- 
posed of; though, with his nagging persistence, he still 
held on. This bored me exceedingly and her too, if I 
could judge by her ridicule of him and her sarcasm 
which he somehow appeared too stupid to see. He 
succumbed, however, to my mimicry of his dancing; 
for I was a good mimic, and Peck, in a very high collar 
and with very short trousers on his dumpy legs, was 
really a fair mark. Miss Poole was by no means indif- 
ferent to public opinion, and a shaft of satire could 
penetrate her mail of complacency. So when she re- 
turned later to the classic shades of the university, as 
she did a number of times for Germans and other 
social functions, I made a good deal of hay. A phrase 
of Peck’s, apropos of this, stuck in my memory. Some 
one — it was, I think, Leo Wolffert — said that I ap- 
peared to be making hay, and Peck said, ‘‘Yes, I would 
be eating it some day.” I often wondered afterward 
how he stumbled on the witticism. 

Those visits of my tall young dulcinea cost me dear 
in the sequel. While the other fellows were boning I 
was lounging in the drawing-room chattering nonsense 
or in the shade of the big trees in some secluded nook, 
writing her very warm poems of the character which 
34 


DELILAH 


Horace says is hated both of Gods and men. Several of 
these poems were published in the college magazine. 
The constant allusions to her physical charms caused 
Peck to say that I evidently considered Miss Poole to be 
“composed wholly of eyes and hair.” His observation 
that a man was a fool to write silly verses to a girl he 
loved, because it gave her a wrong idea of her charms, 
I, at the time, set down to sheer envy, for Peck could 
not turn a rhyme; but since I have discovered that for 
a practical person like Peck, it has a foundation, of 
truth. 


35 


THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 


Meantime, my studies — if any part of my desultory 
occupation could be so termed — suffered undeniably. 
My appearance at the classroom door with a cigarette, 
which I flung away just in time not to carry it into the 
room, together with my chronic excuse of being “ unpre- 
pared,” moved the driest of my professors to the witti- 
cism that I “divided my time between a smoke and a 
flame. ,, It was only as the finals drew near that I 
began to appreciate that I would have the least trouble 
in “making my tickets,” as the phrase went. Sam 
Pleasants, Leo Wolffert and my other friends had begun 
to be anxious for me for some time before — and both 
Wolffert and John Marvel had come to me and sug- 
gested my working, at least, a little: Wolffert with 
delicacy and warmth; John Marvel with that awkward 
bluntness with which he always went at anything. I 
felt perfectly easy in my mind then and met their 
entreaties scornfully. 

“Why, I did well enough at the Intermediates,” I 
said. 

“Yes, but,” said John Marvel, “Delilah was not here 
then ” 

I was conscious, even though I liked the reference to 
Samson, of being a little angered; but John Marvel 
36 


THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 


looked so innocent and so hopelessly friendly that I 
passed it by with a laugh and paid Miss Poole more 
attention than ever. 

The Debater’s Medal had for a long time been, in the 
general estimation, as good as accorded me; for I was 
a fluent, and I personally thought, eloquent speaker, and 
had some reading. But when Wolffert entered the 
debate, his speeches so far outshone mine that I knew 
at once that I was beat. They appeared not so much 
prepared for show, as mine were, as to come from a 
storehouse of reading and reflection. Wolffert, who had 
begun to speak without any design of entering the con- 
test for the Medal, would generously have retired, but 
I would not hear of that. I called Peck to account for 
a speech which I had heard of his making: that “the 
contest was between a Jew and a jug”; but he denied 
making it, so I lost even that satisfaction. 

I worked for the Magazine Medal; but my “poems” 
— “To Cynthia” and “To Felicia,” and my fanc^uL 
sketches, though they were thought fine by our set, aid 
not, in the estimation of the judges, equal the serious 
and solemn essays on Julius Caesar and Alexander 
Hamilton, to which the prize was awarded. At least, 
the author of those essays had worked over them like 
a dog, and in the maturer light of experience, I think 
he earned the prizes. 

I worked hard— at least, at the last, for my law 
degree, and every one was sure I would win — as sure 
as that Peck would lose; but Peclf scraped through 
while mine was held up— because the night before the 
37 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

degrees were posted I insisted on proving to the pro- 
fessor who had my fate in his hands, and whom I 
casually ran into, that a “ gentleman drunk was a 
gentleman sober,” the idea having been suggested to 
my muddled brain by my having just been good- 
natured enough to put to bed Peck. I finally got 
the degree, but not until I had been through many 
tribulations, one of which was the sudden frost in 
Miss Poole’s manner to me. That girl was like autumn 
weather. She could be as warm as summer one minute 
and the next the thermometer would drop below the 
freezing point. I remember I was her escort the even- 
ing of the Final Ball. She looked like Juno with the 
flowers I had gone out in the country to get for her 
from an old garden that I knew. Her face was very 
high bred and her pose majestic. I was immensely 
proud of her and of myself as her escort — and as Peck 
stalked in with a new and ill-fitting suit of “store- 
clothes” on, I fancy I put on my toppiest air. But 
Peck had a shaft and he came there to shoot it. As he 
passed near us, he said in a loud voice to someone, 
“The B. L. list is posted.” 

“Are you through?” demanded the other. 

“Yep.” 

“Anybody failed ’t we expected to get through?” 

“ ’T depends on who you expected to get through. 
Glave’s not on it.” 

His shaft came home. I grew cold for a minute and 
then recovered my^glf. I saw my partner’s face change. 
I raised my head and danced on apparently gayer than 

38 


THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 

ever, though my heart was lead. And she played her 
part well, too. But a few minutes later when Peck 
strutted up, a decided cock to his bullet head, I heard 
her, as I turned away, congratulate him on his success. 

I slipped out and went over to the bulletin-board 
where the degree-men were posted, and sure enough, I 
was not among them. A curious crowd was still 
standing about and they stopped talking as I came up, 
so I knew they had been talking about me. I must say 
that all showed concern, and sympathy was written on 
every face. It was, at least, sweet to know that they 
all considered it a cursed shame, and set my failure 
down to hostility on the part of one of the professors. 
I was determined that no one should know how hard hit 
I was, and I carried my head high till the ball was out, 
and was so lofty with Miss Poole that she was mystified 
into being very receptive. I do not know what might 
have happened that night if it had not been for old John 
Marvel. I learned afterward that I was pretty wild. He 
found me when I was wildly denouncing the law pro- 
fessor who had failed to put me through in some minor 
course, and was vowing that I would smash in his door 
and force my diploma from him. I might have been 
crazy enough to attempt it had not old John gotten hold 
of me. He and Wolffert put me to bed and stayed with 
me till I was sober. And sober enough I was next day. 

As I have said, I received my diploma finally; but 
I lost all the prestige and pleasure of receiving it along 
with my class, and I passed through some of the bitter- 
est hours that a young man can know. 

39 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Among my friends at college — I might say among my 
warmest friends — was my old crony “ Jeams,” or, as he 
spoke of himself to those whom he did not regard as his 
social equals, or whom he wanted to amuse himself 
with, “ Mister Woodson”; a little later changed to 
“ Professor Woodson,” as more dignified and consonant 
with the managing class of the institution. When I left 
for college he followed me, after a brief interval, and 
first appeared as a waiter at the college boarding-house 
where I boarded, having used my name as a reference, 
though at home he had never been nearer the dining- 
room than the stable. Here he was promptly turned 
out, and thereupon became a hanger-on of mine and a 
“Factotum” for me and my friends. 

He was now a tall, slim fellow, with broad shoulders 
and the muscles of Atlas — almost but not quite black 
and with a laugh that would have wiled Cerberus. He 
had the shrewdness of a wild animal, and was as imita- 
tive as a monkey, and this faculty had inspired and 
enabled him to pick up all sorts of acquirements, rang- 
ing from reading and writing to sleight-of-hand tricks» 
for which he showed a remarkable aptitude. Moreover, 
he had a plenty of physical courage, and only needed to 
be backed by someone, on whom he relied, to do any- 
thing. 

I was naturally attached to him and put up with his 
rascalities, though they often taxed me sorely, while he, 
on his part, was so sincerely attached to me, that I 
believe he would have committed any crime at my 
bidding. 


40 


THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 


He considered my old clothes his property, and what 
was far more inconvenient, considered himself the judge 
of the exact condition and moment when they should 
pass from my possession to his. 

He was a handsome rascal, and took at times such 
pride in his appearance that, as he was about my size, 
I had often to exercise a close watch on my meagre 
wardrobe. He had not only good, but really distin- 
guished manners, and, like many of his race, prided 
himself on his manners. Thus, on an occasion when he 
passed Peck at college, and touched his hat to him, a 
civility which Peck ignored, Wolffert said to him, 
“ Jeams, Mr. Peck don’t appear to recognize you.” 

“Oh! yes,” said Jeams, “he recognizes me, but he 
don’t recognize what’s due from one gent’man to 
another.” 

“Are you going to keep on touching your hat to him ? ” 
asked Wolffert. 

“Oh! yes, suh,” said Jeams, “I takes keer o’ my 
manners, and lets him take keer o’ hisn’.” 

Such was “Jeams,” my “body servant,” as he styled 
himself, on occasions when he had an eye to some 
article of my apparel or stood in especial need of a 
donation. 

He hated Peck with as much violence as his easy- 
going nature was capable of, and had no liking for 
Wolffert. The fact that the latter was a Jew and yet 
my friend, staggered him, though he put up with him for 
my sake, and on the night of my fight with Wolffert, I 
think he would, had he had a chance, have murdered 
41 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

him, as I am sure he would have murdered the professor 
who threw me on my degree. He got much fuller than 
I got that night, and his real grief and shame were 
among the heaviest burdens I had to bear. 

Miss Poole returned home the next afternoon after 
the delivery of the diplomas, and I heard that Peck went 
off on the same train with her. 

I expected some sympathy from the girl for whom 
my devotion had cost me so much; but she was as cool 
and sedate over my failure as if it had been Peck’s. 

All she said was, “ Why did not you win the honors ? ” 

“ Because I did not work enough for them.” 

“Why did not you work more?” 

I came near saying, “Because I was fooling around 
you”; but I simply said, “Because I was so certain of 
winning them.” 

“You showed rather bad judgment.” That was all 
the sympathy I received from her. 

The old law professor when he took leave of me said 
— and I remember said it gravely — “Mr. Glave, you 
have the burden of too many gifts to carry.” 

I was pleased by the speech and showed it. He 
looked at me keenly from under his bushy eyebrows. 
“I commend to you the fable of the hare and the 
tortoise. We shall hear of Peck.” 

I wondered how he knew I was thinking of Peck with 
his common face, hard eyes, and stumpy legs. 

“You shall hear of me, too,” I declared with some 
haughtiness. 

He only smiled politely and made no answer. 

42 


THE HARE AND THE TORTOISE 


Nettled, I asked arrogantly, “Don’t you think I 
have more sense — more intellect than Peck?” 

“More intellect — yes — much more. — More sense? 
No. Remember the fable. ‘There are ways that you 
know not and paths that you have not tried.’” 

“Oh! that fable — it is as old as ” 

“Humanity,” he said. “‘To scorn delights and live 
laborious days.’ You will never do that — Peck will.” 

I left him, angry and uncomfortable. 

I had rather looked forward to going to the West to 
a near cousin of my father’s, who, if report were true, 
had made a fortune as a lawyer and an investor in a 
Western city. He and my father had been boys 
together, but my cousin had gone West and when the 
war came, he had taken the other side. My father, 
however, always retained his respect for him and spoke 
of him with affection. He had been to my home during 
my early college-life — a big, stolid, strong-faced man, 
silent and cold, but watchful and clear-minded — and 
had appeared to take quite a fancy to me. 

“When he gets through,” he had said to my father, 
“send him out to me. That is the place for brains and 
ambition, and I will see what is in him for you.” 

Now that I had failed, I could not write to him; 
but as he had made a memorandum of my graduation 
year, and as he had written my father several times, I 
rather expected he would open the way for me. But 
no letter came. So I was content to go to the capital 
of the State. 


43 


VI 


THE METEOR 

I am convinced now that as parents are the most 
unselfish creatures, children are the veriest brutes on 
earth. I was too self-absorbed to think of my kind 
father, who had sacrificed everything to give me oppor- 
tunities which I had thrown under the feet of Lilian 
Poole and who now consoled and encouraged me with- 
out a word of censure. Though I was deeply grieved at 
the loss of my parents, I did not know until years after- 
ward what an elemental and life-long calamity that 
loss was. 

My father appeared as much pleased with my single 
success as if I had brought him home the honors which 
I had been boasting I would show him. He gave me 
only two or three bits of advice before I left home. “ Be 
careful with other peopled money and keep out of 
debt,” he said. “ Also, have no dealings with a rascal, 
no matter how tightly you think you can tie him up.” 
And his final counsel was, “Marry a lady and do not 
marry a fool.” 

I wondered if he were thinking of Lilian Poole. 

However, I had not the least doubt in my mind about 
winning success both with her and with that even more 
jealous Mistress — The Law. In fact, I quite meant to 
revolutionize things by the meteoric character of my 
career. 


44 


THE METEOR 


I started out well. I took a good office fronting on 
the street in one of the best office-buildings — an 
extravagance I could not afford. Peck had a little 
dark hole on the other side of the hall. He made a 
half proposal to share my office with me, but I could 
not stand that. I, however, told him that he was 
welcome to use my office and books as much as he 
pleased, and he soon made himself so much at home in 
my office that I think he rather fell into the habit of 
thinking my clients his own. 

Before I knew many people I worked hard ; read law 
and a great deal of other literature. But this did not 
last long, for I was social and made acquaintances 
easily. Moreover, I soon began to get cases; though 
they were too small to satisfy me — quite below my 
abilities, I thought. So, unless they promised me a 
chance of speaking before a jury, I turned them over to 
Peck, who would bone at them and work like a horse, 
though I often had to hunt up the law for him, a labor 
I never knew him to acknowledge. 

At first I used to correspond with both John Marvel 
and Wolff ert; but gradually I left their letters unan- 
swered. John, who had gone West, was too full of 
his country parish to interest me, and Wolffert’s 
abstractions were too altruistic for me. 

Meantime, I was getting on swimmingly. I was 
taken into the best social set in the city, and was soon 
quite a favorite among them. I was made a member 
of all the germans as well as of the best club in town; 
was welcomed in the poker-game of “the best fellows” 
45 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

in town, and was invited out so much that I really had 
no time to do much else than enjoy my social success. 
But the chief of the many infallible proofs I had was 
my restoration to Lilian Poole’s favor. Since I was 
become a sort of toast with those whose opinion she 
valued highly, she was more cordial to me than ever, 
and I was ready enough to let by-gones be by-gones and 
dangle around the handsomest girl in the State, daugh- 
ter of a man who was president of a big bank and 
director of a half-dozen corporations. I was with her 
a great deal. In fact, before my second winter was 
out, my name was coupled with hers by all of our set 
and many not in our set. And about three evenings 
every week I was to be found basking in her somewhat 
steady smile, either at some dance or other social 
entertainment; strolling with her in the dusk on our 

way home from the fashionable promenade of 

Street — which, for some reason, she always liked, 
though I would often have preferred some quieter walk 
— or lounging on her plush-covered sofa in her back 
drawing-room. I should have liked it better had Peck 
taken the hint that most of my other friends had taken 
and kept away from her house on those evenings 
which by a tacit consent of nearly every one were left 
for my visits. But Peck, who now professed a great 
friendship for me, must take to coming on precisely the 
evenings I had selected for my calls. He never wore a 
collar that fitted him, and his boots were never blacked. 
Miss Lilian used to laugh at him and call him “the 
burr” — indeed, so much that I more than once told 
46 


THE METEOR 


her, that while I was not an admirer of Peck myself, 1 
thought the fact that he was really in love with her 
ought to secure him immunity from her sarcasm. We 
had quite a stiff quarrel over the matter, and I told her 
what our old law professor had said of Peck. 

I had rather thought that, possibly, Mr. Poole, know- 
ing of the growing relation of intimacy between myself 
and his daughter, would throw a little of his law business 
my way; but he never did. He did, in fact, once con- 
sult me at his own house about some extensive interests 
that he owned and represented together in a railway 
in a Western city; but though I took the trouble to 
hunt up the matter and send him a brief on the point 
carefully prepared, he did not employ me, and evidently 
considered that I had acted only as a friend. It was in 
this investigation that I first heard of the name Argand 
and also of the P. D. and B. D. R.R. Co. I heard 
long afterward that he said I had too many interests 
to suit him; that he wanted a lawyer to give him all 
his intellect, and not squander it on politics, literature, 
sport, and he did not know what besides. This was 
a dig at my rising aspirations in each of these fields. 
For I used to write now regularly for the newspapers, 
and had one or two articles accepted by a leading 
monthly magazine — a success on which even Peck 
congratulated me, though he said that, as for him, he 
preferred the law to any other entertainment. My 
newspaper work attracted sufficient attention to inspire 
me with the idea of running for Congress, and I began 
to set my traps and lay my triggers for that. 

47 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Success appeared to wait for me, and my beginning 
was “meteoric.” 

Meteoric beginnings are fatal. The meteor soon 
fades into outer darkness — the outer darkness of the 
infinite abyss. I took it for success and presumed ac- 
cordingly, and finally I came down. I played my game 
too carelessly. I began to speculate — just a little at 
first; but more largely after awhile. There I appeared 
to find my proper field; for I made money almost im- 
mediately, and I spent it freely, and, after I had made 
a few thousands, I was regarded with respect by my 
little circle. 

I began to make money so much more easily by this 
means than I had ever done by the law that I no longer 
thought it worth while to stay in my office, as I had 
done at first, but spent my time, in a flock of other 
lambs, in front of a blackboard in a broker’s office, 
figuring on chances which had already been decided in 
brokers’ offices five hundred miles away. Thus, though 
I worked up well the cases I had, and was fairly success- 
ful with them, I found my clients in time drifting away 
to other men not half as clever as I was, who had no 
other aim than to be lawyers. Peck got some of my 
clients. Indeed, one of my clients in warning me against 
speculating, which, he said, ruined more young men 
than faro and drink together, told me he had learned of 
my habit through Peck. Peck was always in his office 
or mine. I had made some reputation, however, as a 
speaker, and as I had taken an active part in politics 
and had many friends, I stood a good chance for the 
48 


THE METEOR 


commonwealth’s attorneyship; but I had determined to 
fly higher: I wanted to go to Congress. 

I kept a pair of horses now, since I was so successful, 
and used to hunt in the season with other gay pleasure- 
lovers, or spend my afternoons riding with Miss Poole, 
who used to look well on horseback. We often passed 
Peck plodding along alone, stolid and solemn, “ taking 
his constitutional,” he said. I remember once as we 
passed him I recalled what the old professor had said 
of him, and I added that I would not be as dull as Peck 
for a fortune. “Do you know,” said Miss Poole, sud- 
denly, “I do not think him so dull; he has improved.” 
Peck sat me out a few nights after this, and next day I 
nearly insulted him ; but he was too dull to see it. 

I knew my young lady was ambitious; so I deter- 
mined to please her, and, chucking up the fight for the 
attorneyship, I told her I was going to Congress, and 
began to work for it. I was promised the support of so 
many politicians that I felt absolutely sure of the nomi- 
nation. 

Peck told me flatly that I did not stand the ghost of a 
show; and began to figure. Peck was always figuring. 
He advised me to stand for the attorneyship, and said I 
might get it if I really tried. I knew better, however, 
and I knew Peck, too, so I started in. To make a fighl 
I wanted money, and it happened that a little trip I had 
taken in the summer, when I was making a sort of a 
splurge, together with an unlooked-for and wholly in- 
explicable adverse turn in the market had taken all my 
cash. So, to make it up, I went into the biggest deal I 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ever tried. What was the use of fooling about a few 
score dollars a point when I could easily make it a 
thousand ? I would no longer play at the shilling- 
table. I had a “ dead-open-and-shut thing” of it. I 
had gotten inside information of a huge railroad deal 
quietly planned, and was let in as a great favor by in- 
fluential friends, who were close friends of men who 
were manipulating the market, and especially the P. D. 
and B. D., a North-western road which had been re- 
organized some years before. Mr. Poole had some 
interest in it and this made me feel quite safe as to the 
deal. I knew they were staking their fortunes on it. I 
was so sure about it that I even advised Peck, for whom 
I had some gratitude on account of his advice about 
the attorneyship, to let me put him in for a little. But 
he declined. He said he had other use for his money 
and had made it a rule not to speculate. I told him he 
was a fool, and I borrowed all I could and went in. 

It was the most perfectly managed affair I ever saw. 
We — our friends — carried the stock up to a point that 
was undreamed of, and money was too valuable to pay 
debts with, even had my creditors wanted it, which they 
did not, now that I had recouped and was again on the 
crest of the wave. I was rich and was doubling up in a 
pyramid, when one of those things happened that does 
not occur once in ten million times and cannot be 
guarded against! We were just prepared to dump the 
whole business, when our chief backer, as he was on 
his way in his carriage to close the deal, was struck by 
lightning! I was struck by the same bolt. In twenty 
50 


THE METEOR 


minutes I was in debt twenty thousand dollars. Tele- 
grams and notices for margin began to pour in on me 
again within the hour. None of them bothered me so 
much, however, as a bank notice that I had overchecked 
an account in which I had a sum of a few hundred 
dollars belonging to a client of mine — an old widowed 
lady, Mrs. Upshur, who had brought it to me to invest 
for her, and who trusted me. She had been robbed by 
her last agent and this was really all that was left her. 
I remembered how she had insisted on my keeping it 
for her against the final attack of the wolf, she had said. 
“But suppose I should spend it,” I had said jesting. 
“I'm not afraid of your spending it, but of myself*— I 
want so many things. If I couldn’t trust you, I'd give 
up.” And now it was gone. It came to me that if I 
should die at that moment she would think I had robbed 
her, and would have a right to think so. I swear that 
at the thought I staggered, and since then I have always 
known how a thief must sometimes feel. It decided me, 
however. I made up my mind that second that I would 
never again buy another share of stock on a margin as 
long as I lived, and I wrote telegrams ordering every 
broker I had to sell me out and send me my accounts, 
and I mortgaged my old home for all I could get. I 
figured that I wanted just one hundred dollars more 
than I had. I walked across the hall into Peck’s little 
dark office. He was poring over a brief. I said, “Peck, 
I am broke.” 

“What? I am sorry to hear it— but I am not sur- 
prised.” He was perfectly cool, but did look sorry. 

51 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Peck,” I went on, “I saw you pricing a watch the 
other day. Here is one I gave three hundred dollars 
for.” I showed him a fine chronometer repeater I had 
bought in my flush time. 

“I can’t give over a hundred dollars for a watch,” he 
said. 

“How much will you give me for this?” 

“You mean with the chain?” 

“Yes” — I had not meant with the chain, but I 
thought of old Mrs. Upshur. 

“I can’t give over a hundred.” 

“Take it,” and I handed it to him and he gave me a 
hundred-dollar bill, which I took with the interest and 
handed, myself, to my old lady, whom I advised to let 
Peck invest for her on a mortgage. This he did, and I 
heard afterward netted her six per cent — for a time. 

That evening I went to see Lilian Poole. I had made 
up my mind quickly what to do. That stroke of light- 
ning had showed me everything just as it was, in its 
ghastliest detail. If she accepted me, I would begin to 
work in earnest, and if she would wait, as soon as I 
could pay my debts, I would be ready; if not, then — ! 
However, I walked right in and made a clean breast of 
it, and I told her up and down that if she would marry 
me I would win. I shall never forget the picture as she 
stood by the heavy marble mantel in her father’s rich 
drawing-room, tall and uncompromising and very hand- 
some. She might have been marble herself, like the 
mantel, she was so cold, and I, suddenly aroused by the 
shock, was on fire with resolve and fierce hunger for 
52 


THE METEOR 


sympathy. She did not hesitate a moment; and I 
walked out. She had given me a deep wound. I saw 
the sun rise in the streets. 

Within two weeks I had made all my arrangements; 
had closed up my affairs; given up everything in the 
world I had; executed my notes to my creditors and told 
them they were not worth a cent unless I lived, in which 
case they would be worth principal and interest; sold 
my law books to Peck for a price which made his eyes 
glisten, had given him my office for the unexpired term, 
and was gone to the West. 

The night before I left I called to see the young 
lady again — a piece of weakness. But I hated to 
give up. 

She looked unusually handsome. 

I believe if she had said a word or had looked sweet 
at me I might have stayed, and I know I should have 
remained in love with her. But she did neither. When 
I told her I was going away, she said, “ Where ?” That 
was every word — in just such a tone as if she had met 
me on the corner, and I had said I was going to walk. 
She was standing by the mantel with her shapely arm 
resting lightly on the marble. I said, “ God only knows, 
but somewhere far enough away.” 

“When are you coming back?” 

“Never.” 

“Oh, yes, you will,” she said coolly, arranging a 
bracelet, so coolly that it stung me like a serpent and 
brought me on my feet. 

“I'll be — ! No, I will not,” I said. “Good-by.” 

53 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 


“Good-by.” She gave me her hand and it was as 
cool as her voice. 

“ Good-by.” And mine was as cold as if I were dead. 
I swear, I believe sometimes I did die right there before 
her and that a new man took my place within me. At 
any rate my love for her died, slain by the ice in her 
heart ; and the foolish fribble I was passed into a m an 
of resolution. 

As I walked out of her gate, I met Peck going in, and 
I did not care. I did not even hate him. I remember 
that his collar was up to his ears. I heard afterward 
that she accepted him that same week. For some in- 
explicable reason I thought of John Marvel as I 
walked home. I suddenly appeared nearer to him 
than I had done since I left college, and I regretted 
not having answered his simple, affectionate letters. 

I started West that night. 


VII 

THE HEGIRA 

In my manage was a bull-terrier puppy — brindled, 
bow-legged and bold — at least, Jeams declared Dix to 
be a bull-pup of purest blood when he sold him to me 
for five dollars and a suit of clothes that had cost sixty. 
I found later that he had given a quarter for him to a 
negro stable-boy who had been sent to dispose of him. 
Like the American people, he was of many strains; but, 
like the American people, he proved to have good stuff 
in him, and he had the soul of a lion. One eye was 
bleared, a memento of some early and indiscreet inso- 
lence to some decisive-clawed cat; his ears had been 
crookedly clipped and one perked out, the other in, and 
his tail had been badly bobbed; but was as expressive 
as the immortal Rab’s eloquent stump. He feared and 
followed Jeams, but he adored me. And to be adored 
by woman or dog is something for any man to show at 
the last day. To lie and blink at me by the hour was 
his chief occupation. To crawl up and lick my hand, 
or failing that, my boot, was his heaven. 

I always felt that, with all my faults, which none knew 
like myself, there must be some basic good in me to in- 
spire so devoted a love. 

When I determined to leave for the West the night of 
my final break with Lilian Poole, in my selfishness I 
55 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

forgot Dix; but when! reached home that night, sobered 
and solitary, there was Dix with his earnest, adoring 
gaze, his shrewd eye fixed on me, and his friendly twist 
of the back. His joy at my mere presence consoled me 
and gave me spirit, though it did not affect my decision. 

Jeams, who had followed me from college, at times 
hung around my office, carried Miss Poole my notes 
and flowers and, in the hour of my prosperity, blossomed 
out in a gorgeousness of apparel that partly accounted 
for my heavy expense account, as well as for the rapid 
disappearance of the little private stock I occasionally 
kept or tried to keep in a deceptive-looking desk which 
I used as a sideboard for myself and friends. He usu- 
ally wore an old suit of mine, in which he looked sur- 
prisingly well, but on occasions he wore a long-tailed 
coat, a red necktie and a large soft, light hat which, 
cocked on the side of his head, gave him the air of an 
Indian potentate. I think he considered himself in 
some sort a partner. He always referred to me and my 
business as “us” and “our” business, and, on some 
one’s asking him derisively if he were a partner of mine, 
he replied, “Oh, no, sir, only what you might term a 
minor connectee of the Captain.” He was, however, a 
very useful fellow, being ready to do anything in the 
world I ordered, except when he was tight or had some 
piece of rascality on foot — occasions by no means rare. 
He wore, at election time, a large and flaming badge 
announcing that he was something in his party — the 
opposite party to mine; but I have reason to believe that 
when I was in politics he perjured himself freely and 
56 


THE HEGIRA 


committed other crimes against the purity of the ballot 
on which economists declare all Representative Govern- 
ment is founded. One of my ardent friends once in- 
formed me that he thought I ought not to allow Jeams 
to wear that badge — it was insulting me openly. I told 
him that he was a fool, that I was so afraid Jeams would 
insist on my wearing one, too, I was quite willing to 
compromise. In fact, I had gotten rather dependent on 
him. Then he and I held such identical views as to 
Peck, not to mention some other mutual acquaintances, 
and Jeams could show his contempt in such delightfully 
insolent ways. 

I had intimated to Jeams some time before, imme- 
diately after my first serious reverse in the stock market, 
that I was no longer as flush as I had been, and that un- 
less affairs looked up I might move on to fresh pastures 
— or, possibly, I put it, to a wider field for the exercise 
of my powers; whereupon he promptly indicated his in- 
tention to accompany me and share my fortune. But I 
must say, he showed plainly his belief that it was a richer 
pasture which I was contemplating moving into, and he 
viewed the prospect with a satisfaction much like that 
of a cat which, in the act of lapping milk, has cream set 
before it. The only thing that puzzled him was that he 
could not understand why I wanted more than I had. 
He said so plainly. 

“ What you want to go ’way for, Cap'n ? Whyn't you 
stay where you is ? You done beat 'em all — evy one of 
'em ” 

“Oh! no, I haven't.” 


57 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“ Go ’way f’om here — you is an’ you know you is — 
d that’s the reason you carry yo’ head so high.” (He 
little knew the true reason.) “An’ if you hadn’t, all you 
got to do is to walk in yonder — up yonder (with a toss 
of his head in the direction of Miss Poole’s home), an’ 
hang up your hat, and den you ain got nothin’ to do 
but jus’ write yo’ checks.” 

I laughed at Jeams’s idea of the situation, and of old 
Poole’s son-in-law’s position. But it was rather a bit- 
terer laugh than he suspected. To soothe my conscience 
and also to draw him out, I said, though I did not then 
really think it possible: 

“Why, she’s going to marry Peck/” 

Jeams turned around and actually spat out his dis- 
gust. 

“What, dthat man I” Then, as he looked at me to 
assure himself that I was jesting, and finding a shade 
less amusement in my countenance than he had ex- 
pected, he uttered a wise speech. 

“Well, I tell you, Cap’n — if dthat man gits her he 
ought to have her, ‘cause he done win her an’ you ain’t 
know how to play de game. You done discard de 
wrong card.” 

I acknowledged in my heart that he had hit the mark, 
and I laughed a little less bitterly, which he felt— as did 
Dix, lying against my foot which he suddenly licked 
twice. 

“ An’ Pll tell you another thing — you’s well rid of her. 
Ef she likes dthat man bes’, let him have her, and you 
git another one. Der’s plenty mo,’ jes’ as good and 
58 


THE HEGIRA 


better, too, and you’ll meek her sorry some day. Pthat’s 
de way I does. If dey wants somebody else, I let’s ’em 
have ’em. It’s better to let ’em have ’em befo’ than 
after.” 

When Jeams walked out of my room, he had on a 
suit which I had not had three months, and a better 
suit than I was able to buy again in as many years. 
But he had paid me well for it. I had in mind his wise 
saying when I faced Lilian Poole without a cent on 
earth, with all gone except my new-born resolution and 
offered her only myself, and as I walked out of her gate 
I consoled myself with Jeams ’s wisdom. 

When I left Miss Poole I walked straight home, and 
having let nobody know, I spent the evening packing 
up and destroying old letters and papers and odds and 
ends; among them, all of Lilian Poole’s lettters and 
other trash. At first, I found myself tending to reading 
over and keeping a few letters and knickknacks; but as I 
glanced over the letters and found how stiff, measured, 
and vacant her letters were as compared with my burn- 
ing epistles, in which I had poured out my heart, my 
wrath rose, and I consigned them all to the flames, 
whose heat was the only warmth they had ever known. 

I was in the midst of this sombre occupation, with no 
companion but my angry reflections and no witness but 
Dix, who was plainly aware that something unsuual was 
going on and showed his intense anxiety, in the only 
method that dull humanity has yet learned to catalogue 
as Dog-talk: by moving around, wagging his stump of a 
twist-tail and making odd, uneasy sounds and move- 
59 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ments. His evident anxiety about me presently at- 
tracted my attention, and I began to think what I should 
do with him. I knew old Mrs. Upshur would take and 
care for him as she would for anything of mine; but Dix, 
though the best tempered of canines, had his standards, 
which he lived up to like a gentleman, and he brooked 
no insolence from his inferiors or equals and admitted 
no superiors. Moreover, he needed out-door exercise as 
all sound creatures do, and this poor, old decrepit Mrs. 
Upshur could not give him. I discarded for one reason 
or another my many acquaintances, and gradually 
Jeams took precedence in my mind and held it against 
all reasoning. He was drunken and worthless — he 
would possibly, at times, neglect Dix, and at others, 
would certainly testify his pride in him and prove his 
confidence by making him fight; but he adored the dog 
and he feared me somewhat. As I wavered there was a 
knock and Jeams walked in. He was dressed in my 
long frock coat and his large, gray hat was on the back 
of his head — a sure sign that he was tight, even had 
not his dishevelled collar and necktie and his perspiring 
countenance given evidence of his condition. As he 
stood in the door, his hand went up to his hat; but at 
sight of the room, he dropped it before he could reach 
the hat and simply stared at me in blank amazement. 

“Hi! What you doin’ ?” he stammered. 

“Packing up.” 

“Where you goin’?” 

“Going away.” 

“When you cornin’ back?” 

60 



“Hi! What vou doin’?” he stammered 
























V 



























































































■ 

* 




THE HEGIRA 


" Never.” 

‘‘What! Well, damned if I ain’ gwine wid you, 
then.” 

The tone was so sincere and he was evidently so much 
in earnest that a lump sprang into my throat. I turned 
away to keep him from seeing that I was moved, and it 
was to keep him still from finding it out, that I turned 
on him with well feigned savageness as he entered the 
room. 

“You look like going with me, don’t you! You 
drunken scoundrel! Take your hat off, sir” — for in his 
confusion he had wholly forgotten his manners. They 
now came back to him. 

“ Ixcuse me — Cap’n ” (with a low bow). “ Ixcuse me, 
suh. I al’ays removes my hat in the presence of the 
ladies and sech distinguished gent’ mens as yourself, suh; 
but, Cap’n ” 

“Drunken rascal!” I muttered, still to hide my feel- 
ing. 

“Cap’n — I ain’ drunk — I’ll swear I ain’ had a drink 
not in — ” He paused for an appropriate term and gave 
it up. “ — Not in — I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles as — 
as high as Gen’l Washin’s monument — you bring it 
heah— is you got a Bible? You smell my breath!” 

“Smell your breath! I can’t smell anything but your 
breath. Open that window!” 

“Yes, suh,” and the window was meanderingly ap- 
proached, but not reached, for he staggered slightly and 
caught on a chair. 

“ Cap’n, I ain’ had a drink for a year — I’ll swear to 

61 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

dthat. I'll prove it to you. I ain' had a cent to buy 
one wid in a month — I was jus* cornin’ roun’ to ast you 
to gi’ me one — jus’ to git de dust out o’ my throat.” 

“ Dust I Clean those things up there and get some 
dust in your throat.” 

“Yes, suh — yes, suh — Cap’n” — insinuatingly, as his 
eye fell on Dix, who was standing looking attentively 
first at me and then at Jeams, completely mystified by 
my tone, but ready to take a hand if there was any need 
for him. “Cap’n ” 

“Well, what is it? What do you want now?” 

“Will you lend me a hundred?” 

“A hundred dollars?” 

“Yes, suh — you see ” 

“No. I’ll give you a hundred licks if you don’t get to 
work and clean up that floor.” 

“Cap’n — yes , suh — I’m gwine to clean *t up — but, 
Cap’n ” 

“Well?” 

“I’ll let you in — jes’ len’ me ten — or five — or jes* one 
dollar — hit’s a cinch — Lord! I can meek ten for one 
jist as easy — Dee don’ know him — Dee think he ain’ 
nuthing but a cur dawg — dats what I told ’em. And 
I’ll meek you all de money in the worl’ — I will dat.” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“Well, you see, hits dthis away — I wouldn’t bother 
you if dat yaller bar-keeper nigger hadn’ clean me up 

wid them d d loaded bones of hisn — jis’ stole it 

from me — yes, suh — jis’ ” 

“ Cleaned you up ? When ? ” 

62 


THE HEGIRA 


“Dthis very evenin' — I had seventeen dollars right in 
my pocket, heah. You ax Mr. Wills if I didn't. He 
seen me have it — I had jes' got it, too ” 

“You liar — you just now told me you hadn't had a 
cent in a month, and now you say you had seventeen 
dollars this evening.” Jeams reared himself up. 

“I toll you dthat?” He was now steadying himself 
with great gravity and trying to keep his eyes fixed on 
me. 

“Yes.” 

“ No, sir. I never toll you dthat in this worl' ! 'Cause 
'twould a been a lie — and I wouldn' tell you a lie for 
nuthin' on earth — I never had no seventeen dollars.” 

“I know you didn't — I know that's true, unless you 
stole it; but you said ” 

“No, sir — what I said was — dthat if you'd len' me 
seventeen dollars I'd take Dix there and kill any dawg 
dthat yaller nigger up yonder in the Raleigh Hotel 
could trot out — I didn' keer what he was — and I said 
I'd — give you a hundred dollars out of the skads I 
picked up — d that's what I said> and you got it wrong.” 

“You'll do what?” 

“You see, hit's this away — dthat big-moufed, corn- 
fed yaller nigger — he was allowin’ dthat Mr. Mulligan 
had a dawg could chaw up any dawg dis side o' tor- 
ment, and I 'lowed him a ten dthat I had one 's could 
lick H — 1 out o' any Mulligan or Mulligan's dawg top 
o' groun' — 'n' dthat you'd len' me th' ten to put up.” 

“ Well, you've lost one ten anyway — I won't lend you 
a cent, and if I catch you fighting Dix, I'll give you the 
63 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

worst lambing you ever had since Justice John had you 
skinned for stealing those chickens.” 

Jeams threw up his eyes in reprobation. 

“Now, Cap’n — you know I never stole dem stags 
— dthat old jestice he jes’ sentenced me ’cause you was 
my counsel an’ cause’ I was a nigger an’ he had’n had a 
chance at me befo’ — I bet if I’d give’ him half de money 
’sted o’ payin’ you, he’d a’ let me off mighty quick*” 

“Pay me! you never paid me a cent in your life.” 

“ Well, I promised to pay you, didn’ I ? An’ ain’t 
dthat de same thin’ ? ” 

“Not by a big sight ” 

“Dthat’s de way gent’mens does.” 

“Oh! do they?” 

Jeams came back to the main theme. 

“Mr. Hen, ain’ you gwine let me have dem ten dol- 
lars, sho’ ’nough ? Hit’s jes’ like pickin’ money up in de 
road: Dix kin kill dat dawg befo’ you ken say Jack 
Roberson.” 

“Jeams,” I said, “look at me!” 

“Yes, suh, I’m lookin’,” and he was. 

“I am going away to-night ” 

“Well, I’m gwine width you, I ain’ gwine stay heah 
by myself after you and Dix is gone.” 

“No, you can’t do that. I don’t know yet exactly 
where I am going, I have not yet decided. I am going 
West — to a big city.” 

“Dthat’s where I want to go — ” interrupted Jeams. 

“And when I get settled I’ll send for Dix — I’m going 
to leave him with you.” 


64 


THE HEGIRA 


“Yes, suh, I’ll teck keer of him sure. I’ll match him 
against any dawg in dthis town — he can kill dthat dawg 

of dthat yaller nigger’s ” 

“No, if you put him in a fight, I’ll kill you the first 
time I see you — d’you hear ? ” 

“Yes, suh — I ain’ gwine put him in no fight. But ef 
he gits in a fight — you know he’s a mighty high-spirited 
dawg — he don’ like dawgs to come nosin’ roun’ him. 

Hit sort o’ aggrivates him. An’ ef he should ? ” 

“I’ll whip you as sure as you live ” 

“Jes’ef he should?” 

“Yes — if you let him.” 

“ No, suh, I ain’ gwine let him. You lef him wid me.” 
And though I knew that he was lying, I was content 
to leave the dog with him; for I was obliged to leave him 
with someone, and I knew he loved this dog and hoped 
my threat would, at least, keep him from anything that 
might hurt him. 

I drifted out to the Club later and casually dropped 
the information that I was going away. I do not think 
it made much impression on my friends there — in fact, 
I hardly think they took the information seriously. 
They were a kindly lot, but took life and me lightly. 

When I left town at midnight, the rain was pouring 
do*vn and there was no one at the dreary station to see 
me off but Jeams and Dix, and as the train pulled out I 
stood on the platform to say good-by to Jeams, who was 
waving his right hand sadly, while with the other he 
gripped the collar of the dejected Dix who, with his eyes 
on me, struggled spasmodically and viciously. 

65 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Suddenly Dix turned on his captor with a snarl and 
snap which startled Jeams so that he let him go, then 
whirling about, he tore after the train which was just 
beginning to quicken its speed. He had to rush over 
ties and switch-rods, but he caught up and made a 
spring for the step. He made good his footing, but 
Jeams was running and waving wildly and, with his 
voice in my ears, I pushed the dog off with my foot and 
saw him roll over between the tracks. Nothing 
daunted, however, he picked himself up, and with 
another rush, sprang again for the step. This time 
only his forefeet caught and he hung on by them for 
a second, then began to slip — inch by inch he was 
slipping off as I stood watching him, when, under an 
impulse, fearing that he might be killed, I hastily, 
and with a sudden something in my throat, reached 
down and caught him just in time to pull him up, 
and taking him in my. arms I bore him into the car. 
I confess that, as I felt him licking my hands, a 
warmer feeling than I had had for some time came 
around my heart which had been like a lump of ice 
during these last days, and I was glad no one was near 
by who knew me. I made up my mind that, come what 
might, I would hold on to my one faithful friend. 


66 


VIII 


PADAN-ARAM 

I first went to the town in which lived the relative, 
the cousin of my father’s whom I have mentioned. It 
was a bustling, busy city and he was reputed the head 
of the Bar in his State — a man of large interests and 
influence. I knew my father’s regard for him. I think 
it was this and his promise about me that made me go 
to him now. I thought he might help me, at least with 
advice; for I had his name. 

I left my trunk and Dix at the hotel and called on him 
at his large office. In my loneliness, I was full of a 
new-born feeling of affection for this sole kinsman. I 
thought, perhaps, he might possibly even make me an 
offer to remain with him and eventually succeed to his 
practice. I had not seen him two seconds, however, 
before I knew this was folly. When I had sent in my 
name by an obtrusive-eyed office-boy, I was kept waiting 
for some time in the duter office where the office-boy 
loudly munched an apple, and a couple of clerks 
whispered to each other with their eyes on the private 
office-door. And when I was ushered in, he gave me a 
single keen look as I entered and went on writing with- 
out asking me to sit down, and I would not sit without 
an invitation. When he had finished he looked up, and 
nodded his head with a sort of jerk toward a chair. He 
67 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

was a large man with a large head, short gray hair, a 
strong nose, a heavy chin, and gray eyes close together, 
without the kindliness either of age or of youth. I 
took a step toward him and in some embarrassment 
began to speak rapidly. I called him “Cousin,” for 
blood had always counted for a great deal with us, and 
I had often heard my father speak of him with pride. 
But his sharp look stopped me. 

“Take a seat,” he said, more in a tone of command 
than of invitation, and called me “Mister.” It was 
like plunging me into a colder atmosphere. I did not 
sit down, but I was so far into my sentence I could not 
well stop. So I went on and asked him what he thought 
of my settling there, growing more and more embar- 
rassed and hot with every word. 

“Have you any money?” he asked shortly. 

“Not a cent.” 

“Well, I have none to lend you. You need not count 
on me. I would advise — ” But I did not wait for him 
to finish. I had got hold of myself and was self-pos- 
sessed enough now. 

“I did not ask you to lend me any money, either,” 
I said, straightening myself up. “ I did ask you to give 
me some advice; but now I do not want that or any- 
thing else you have, d n you ! I made a mistake in 

coming to you, for I am abundantly able to take care of 
myself.” 

Of course, I know now that he had something on his 
side. He supposed me a weak, worthless dog, if not 
a “dead-beat.” But I was so angry with him I could 
68 


PADAN-ARAM 


not help saying what I did. I stalked out and slammed 
the door behind me with a bang that made the glass 
in the sash rattle; and the two or three young men, busy 
in the outer office, looked up in wonder. I went straight 
to the hotel and took the train to the biggest city my 
money would get me to. I thought a big city offered 
the best chances for me, and, at least, would hide me. 
I think the fact that I had once written a brief for Mr. 
Poole in the matter of his interest in car lines there 
influenced me in my selection, 

I travelled that night and the next day and the night 
following, and partly because my money was running 
low and partly on Dix’s account, I rode in a day-coach. 
The first night and day passed well enough, but the 
second night I was tired and dusty and lonely. 

On the train that night I spent some serious hours. 
Disappointment is the mother of depression and the 
grandmother of reflection. I took stock of myself and 
tried to peer into the dim and misty future, and it was 
gloomy work. Only one who has started out with the 
world in fee, and after throwing it away in sheer reckless- 
ness of folly, suddenly hauls up to find himself bank- 
rupt of all he had spurned in his pride: a homeless 
and friendless wanderer on the face of the earth, 
may imagine what I went through. I learned that 
night what the exile feels; I dimly felt what the outcast 
experiences. And I was sensible that I had brought it 
all on myself. I had wantonly wasted all my substance 
in riotous living and I had no father to return to — • 
nothing, not even swine to keep in a strange land. I 

69 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

faced myself on the train that night, and the effigy I 
gazed on I admitted to be a fool. 

The train, stuffy and hot, lagged and jolted and 
stopped, and still I was conscious of only that soul- 
shifting process of self-facing. The image of Peck, the 
tortoise, haunted me. At times I dozed or even slept 
very soundly; though doubled up like a jack-knife, as 
I was, I could not efface myself even in my sleep. But 
when I waked, there was still myself — grim, lonely, 
homeless — haunting me like a stabbed corpse chained 
to my side. 

I was recalled to myself at last by the whimpering 
of children packed in a seat across the aisle from me. 
They had all piled in together the first night somewhere 
with much excitement. They were now hungry and 
frowsy and wretched. There were five of them, red- 
cheeked and dirty; complaining to their mother who, 
worn and bedraggled herself, yet never lost patience 
with one or raised her voice above the soothing pitch 
in all her consoling. 

At first I was annoyed by them ; then I was amused ; 
then I wondered at her, and at last, I almost envied 
her, so lonely was I and so content was she with her 
little brood. 

Hitched on to the train the second night was a private 
car, said to be that of someone connected with a vice- 
president of the road. The name of the official, which 
I learned later, was the same as that of an old college 
friend of my father’s, and I had often heard my father 
mention him as his successful rival with his first sweet- 

70 


PADAN-ARAM 


heart, and he used to tease my mother by recalling the 
charms of Kitty MacKenzie, the young lady in question, 
whose red golden hair he declared the most beautiful 
hair that ever crowned a mortal head — while my 
mother, I remember, insisted that her hair was merely 
carroty, and that her beauty, though undeniable, was 
distinctly of the milkmaid order — a shaft which was 
will aimed, for my mother’s beauty was of the delicate, 
aristocratic type. The fact was that Mr. Leigh had 
been a suitor of hers before my father met her, and 
having been discarded by her, had consoled himself 
with the pretty girl, to whom my father had been atten- 
tive before he met and fell “head over heels in love” 
with a new star at a college ball. 

Mr. Leigh, I knew, had gone West, and grown up 
to be a banker, and I wondered vaguely if by any chance 
he could be the same person. 

The train should have reached my destination in time 
for breakfast, and we had all looked forward to it and 
made our arrangements accordingly. The engine, 
however, which had been put on somewhere during the 
night, had “given out,” and we were not only some 
hours late, but were no longer able to keep steadily even 
the snail’s pace at which we had been crawling all night. 
The final stop came on a long upgrade in a stretch of 
broken country sparsely settled, and though once heavily 
wooded, now almost denuded. Here the engine, after 
a last futile, gasping effort, finally gave up, and the 
engineer descended for the dozenth time to see “what 
he could do about it.” To make matters worse, the 
71 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

water in our car had given out, and though we had been 
passing streams a little before, there was no water in 
sight where we stopped. It soon became known that 
we should have to wait until a brakeman could walk 
to the nearest telegraph station, miles off, and have 
another engine despatched to our aid from a town 
thirty or more miles away. So long as there had been 
hope of keeping on, however faint, there had been 
measurable content, and the grumbling which had been 
heard at intervals all the latter part of the night had 
Deen sporadic and subdued; but now, when the last 
hope was gone, and it was known that we were at last 
“ stuck” for good, there was an outbreak of ill-humor 
from the men, though the women in the car still kept 
silent, partly subdued by their dishevelled condition 
and partly because they were content for once, while 
listening to the men. Now and then a man who had 
been forward would come back into the car, and 
address someone present, or speak to the entire car, 
and in the silence that fell every one listened until he 
had delivered himself. But no one had yet given a 
satisfactory explanation of the delay. 

At last, a man who sat near me gave an explanation. 
“The engine lost time because it had too heavy a load. 
It’s a heavy train, anyway, and they put a private car 
on and the engine could not pull it, that’s all that’s the 
matter.” He spoke with the finality of a judge, and sat 
back in his seat, and we all knew that he had hit the 
mark, and given the true cause. Henceforward he 
was regarded with respect. He really knew things. 
72 


PADAN-ARAM 


I insensibly took note of him. He was a middle-sized, 
plain-looking man with bright eyes and a firm mouth. 
Whether by a coincidence or not, just at that moment 
something appeared to have given way in the car: 
babies began to cry; children to fret, and the elders to 
fume and grumble. In a short time every one in the 
car was abusing the railroad and its management. 
Their inconsiderateness, their indifference to the com- 
fort of their passengers. 

“They pay no more attention to us and take no 
more care of us than if we were so many cattle,” 
growled a man. “I couldn’t get a single berth last 
night.” He was a big, sour-looking fellow, who wore 
patent-leather shoes on his large feet, and a silk hat, now 
much rubbed — and a dirty silk handkerchief was tucked 
in his soiled collar, and in his soiled shirt front showed 
a supposititious diamond. He was, as I learned later, 
named Wringman, and was a labor-leader of some note. 

“Not as much as of cattle — for, at least, they water 
them,” said another, “they care nothing about our 
comfort.” 

“Unless they ride in a Pullman,” interjected the man 
near me, who had explained the situation. 

The woman with the five children suddenly turned. 
“And that’s true, too,” she said, with a glance of ap- 
preciation at him and a sudden flash of hate at the 
big man with the diamond. Off and on all night 
the children had, between naps, begged for water, and 
the mother had trudged back and forth with the patience 
of an Egyptian water-carrier, but now the water had 
73 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

given out, and the younger ones had been whimpering 
because they were hungry. 

I went forward, and about the engine, where I stood 
for a time, looking on while we waited, I heard further 
criticism of the road, but along a different line, from the 
trainmen : 

“Well, I’ll have to stand it,” said one of them, the 
engineer, a man past middle-age. “No more strikes 
for me. That one on the C. B. and B. D. taught me 
a lesson. I was pretty well fixed then — had a nice 
house and lot ’most paid for in the Building Company, 
and the furniture all paid for, except a few instal- 
ments, and it all went. I thought we’d ’a’ starved 
that winter — and my wife’s been sick ever since.” 

“I know,” said his friend, “but if they cut down 
we’ve got to fight. I’m willin’ to starve to beat ’em.” 

“You may be; but you ain’t got little children and a 
sick wife.” 

A little later I saw the flashily dressed man with the 
dirty handkerchief talking to him, and insisting that 
they should fight the company: “We’ll bring ’em 
to their knees,” he said, with many oaths. The engineer 
kept silence, the younger man assented warmly. 

I went back to my car. Presently matters grew so 
bad in the car that my sympathies for the children were 
aroused, and I determined to see if I could not ameliorate 
the conditions somewhat. I went back to the Pullman 
car to see if there was any chance of buying some food : 
but the haggard looking porter said there was nothing 
on the car. “They usually go in to breakfast,” he 
74 


PADAN-ARAM 


explained. My only chance would be the private car 
behind. So, after I had been forward and ascertained 
that we would not get away for at least an hour 
more, I went back and offered to look after the older 
children of the little family. “ I am going to take 
my dog for a run; I’ll take the little folks too.” The 
mother with a baby in her arms and a child, hardly more 
than a baby, tugging at her, looked unutterably tired, 
and was most grateful to me. I took the older children 
and went down the bank, and turning back, began to 
pick the straggling wild flowers beside the track. As 
we passed the private car, the door opened, and the 
cook tossed a waiterful of scraps out on the ground on 
which both Dixie and the children threw themselves. 
But, though there was plenty of bread, it had all been 
ruined by being in the slop- water; so Dixie was soon 
left in undisturbed possession. 

A little beyond the end of the train we came on a 
young girl engaged in the same occupation as ourselves. 
Her back was toward us, but her figure was straight 
and supple, and her motions easy and full of spring. 
The sight of the young lady so fresh and cool, with the 
morning sun shining on a thick coil of shining hair, quite 
revived me. I drew near to get a good look at her and 
also to be within shot of a chance to speak to her should 
opportunity offer. If I were a novelist trying to de- 
scribe her I should say that she was standing just at 
the foot of a bank with a clump of green bushes behind 
her, her arms full of flowers which she had gathered. 
For all these were there, and might have been created 
75 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

there for her, so harmonious were they with the fresh 
young face above them and the pliant form which 
clasped them. I might further have likened her to 
Proserpine with her young arms full of blossoms from 
Sicilian meads; for she resembled her in other ways 
than in embracing flowers and breathing fragrance as 
she stood in the morning light. But truth to tell, it 
was only later that I thought of these. The first im- 
pression I received, as it will be the last, was of her eyes. 
Dimples, and snow-white teeth; changing expression 
where light and shadow played, with every varying 
feeling, and where color came and went like roses 
thrown on lilies, and lilies on roses, all came to me later 
on. But that was in another phase. Her eyes were 
what I saw at first, and never since have I seen the 
morning or the evening star swimming in rosy light but 
they have come back to me. I remember I wore a 
blue suit and had on an old yachting cap, which I had 
gotten once when on a short cruise with a friend. I was 
feeling quite pleased with myself. She suddenly turned. 

“Are you the brakeman?” 

“ No, I am not.” I could scarcely help laughing at my 
sudden fall. “But perhaps I can serve you ?” I added. 

“Oh! I beg pardon! No, I thank you. I only 
wanted to ask — However, it is nothing.” 

Dix had, on being let out, and satisfying himself 
that I was coming along, made a wild dash down the 
bank and alongside the train, and now on his return 
rush, catching sight of the young lady in her fresh frock, 
without waiting for the formality of an introduction, 
76 


PADAN-ARAM 


he made a dash for her and sprang up on her as if he 
had known her all his life. I called to him, but it was 
too late, and before I could stop him, he was up telling 
her what after my first look at her I should have liked 
to tell her myself: what a sweet charming creature we 
thought her. 

Dixie had no scruples of false pride inculcated by a 
foolish convention of so-called society. He liked her and 
said so, and she liked him for it, while I was glad to shine 
for a moment in the reflected glory of being his master. 

“What a fine dog!” she exclaimed as she patted him, 
addressing the children, who, with soiled clothes and 
tousled heads, were gazing at the spick-and-span appari- 
tion in open-mouthed wonder. “How I envy you such 
a dog.” 

“He ain’t ours, he belongs to him,” said the child, 
pointing to me, as I stooped at a little distance pretend- 
ing to pull blossoms while I listened. 

“Oh! Who is he? Is he your father?” My face 
was averted. 

“Oh! no. We don’t know who he is; he just took 
us so.” 

“Took you so?” 

“You see,” explained the next older one, “our mother, 
she’s got the baby and Janet, and the gentleman, he 
said he would take us and get some wild flowers, be- 
cause we hadn’t had any breakfast, and that dog” — 
But the dog was forgotten on the instant. 

“Have not had any breakfast!” exclaimed the young 
lady with astonishment. 


77 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“No; you see, we had some bread last night, but 
that's given out. She ate the last piece last night — ” 
(she pointed at the smallest child) — “and we were so 
hungry; she cried, and Mamma cried, and that gentle- 
man ” 

By this time I had turned and I now stepped forward. 
I confess, that as I turned, wrath was in my heart, but 
at sight of that horrified face, in its sympathy, my anger 
died away. 

“Oh! and to think what I wasted! How did it 
happen?” 

“The train was late and they had expected to get in to 
breakfast, but the engine gave out,” I explained. 

“And they have not had any breakfast?” 

“No one on the train.” 

“You see,” chimed in the oldest girl, glad to be able 
to add information, “the train's heavy anyway, and they 
put a private car on, and it was more than the engine 
could pull, that's all that’s the matter.” 

The young lady turned to me: 

“Do you mean that our car has caused all this 
trouble?” 

I nodded. “I don't know about 'all,' but it helped.” 

“You poor little dears!” she said, rushing to the 
children, “come with me.” And, taking the youngest 
child by the hand, she hurried to the rear steps of the 
car, with the others close behind, while Dixie, who 
appeared to know what was in store, walked close 
beside her knee, as much as to say, “ Don't leave me 
out.” 


78 


PADAN-ARAM 


As the train stood on an embankment, the step was 
too high for her to climb up, so I offered to put the 
children up on the top step for her. Then came the 
difficulty of her getting up herself. She called the 
porter, but the door was shut and there was no answer. 

“Let me help you up, too,” I said. “Here, you can 
reach the rail, and step in my hand and spring up. I 
can help you perfectly well — as though you were mount- 
ing a horse,” I added, seeing her hesitate. And, without 
giving her time to think, I stooped and lifted her to the 
step. As she sprang up, the door opened, and a portly 
lady, richly dressed and with several diamond rings on, 
came out on the platform. She gazed on the little 
group with astonishment. 

“Why, Eleanor, what is this? Who are these?” 

“They are some poor children, Aunt, who have had 
no breakfast, and I am going to give them some.” 

“Why, they can’t come in here, my dear. Those 
dirty little brats come in our car! It is impossible, my 
dear.” 

“Oh, no, it is not, Aunty,” said the young girl with a 
laugh, “they have had no breakfast.” 

“Give them food, my dear, if you please, but I beg 
you not to bring them into this car. Look how dirty 
they are! Why, they might give us all some terrible 
disease!” 

But Miss Eleanor had closed her ears to the plump 
lady’s expostulations, and was arranging with a surly 
servant for something to eat for the children. And 
just then the question of their invasion of the car was 
79 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

settled by the train’s starting. I undertook to run for- 
ward alongside the car, but seeing an open ravine ahead 
spanned by a trestle, and that the train was quickening 
its speed, I caught Dixie and threw him up on the rear 
platform, and then swung myself up after him. The 
rear door was still unlocked, so I opened it to pass 
through the car. Just inside, the elderly lady was 
sitting back in an arm-chair with a novel in her lap, 
though she was engaged at the moment in softly 
polishing her nails. She stopped long enough to 
raise her jewelled lorgnette, and take a shot at me 
through it: 

“Are you the brakeman?” she called. 

“No, Madame,” I said grimly, thinking, “Well, I 
must have a brakeman’s air to-day.” 

“Oh! Will you ring that bell?” 

“ Certainly.” I rang and, passing on, was met by the 
porter coming to answer the bell. 

“This is a private car,” he said shortly, blocking my 
way. 

“I know it.” I looked him in the eye. 

“You can’t go th’oo this car.” 

“ Oh ! yes, I can. I have got to go through it. Move 
out of my way.” 

My tone and manner impressed him sufficiently, and 
he surlily moved aside, muttering to himself; and I 
passed on, just conscious that the stout lady had posted 
herself at the opening of the passage-way behind, and 
had beckoned to the porter, who sprang toward her with 
alacrity. As I passed through the open saloon, the 
80 


PADAN-ARAM 


young lady was engaged in supplying my little charges 
with large plates of bread and butter, while a grinning 
cook, in his white apron and cap, was bringing a yet 
further supply. She turned and smiled to me as I 
passed. 

“ Won’t you have something, too ? It is a very poor 
apology for a breakfast; for we had finished and cleared 
away, but if ” 

“ These little tots don’t appear to think so,” I said, 
my ill-humor evaporating under her smile. 

“Well, won’t you have something?” 

I declined this in my best Chesterfieldian manner, 
alleging that I must go ahead and tell their mother what 
a good fairy they had found. 

“Oh! it is nothing. To think of these poor little 
things being kept without breakfast all morning. My 
father will be very much disturbed to find that this car 
has caused the delay.” 

“Not if he is like his sister,” I thought to myself, 
but I only bowed, and said, “ I will come back in a little 
while, and get them for their mother.” To which she 
replied that she would send them to their mother by the 
porter, thereby cutting off a chance which I had prom- 
ised myself of possibly getting another glimpse of her. 
But the sight of myself at this moment in a mirror 
hastened my departure. A large smudge of black was 
across my face, evidently from a hand of one of the 
children. The prints of the fingers in black were plain 
on my cheek, while a broad smear ran across my nose. 
No wonder they thought me a brakeman. 

81 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

As I reached the front door of the car I found it 
locked and I could not open it. At the same moment 
the porter appeared behind me. 

“Ef you’ll git out of my way, I’ll open it,” he said in 
a tone so insolent that my gorge rose. 

I stood aside and, still muttering to himself, he un- 
locked the door, and with his hand on the knob, stood 
aside for me to pass. As I passed I turned to look for 
Dixie, who was following me, and I caught the words, 
“I’se tired o’ po’ white folks and dogs in my car.” At 
the same moment Dixie passed and he gave him a kick, 
which drew a little yelp of surprise from him. My 
blood suddenly boiled. The door was still open and, 
quick as light, I caught the porter by the collar and with 
a yank jerked him out on the platform. The door 
slammed to as he came, and I had him to myself. With 
my hand still on his throat I gave him a shake that made 
his teeth rattle. 

“You black scoundrel,” I said furiously. “I have 
a good mind to fling you off this train, and break your 
neck.” The negro’s face was ashy. 

“ Indeed, boss,” he said, “I didn’ mean no harm in 
the world by what I said. If I had known you was one 
of dese gentlemens, I’d ’a’ never said a word; nor suh, 
that I wouldn’. An’ I wouldn’ ’a’ tetched your dorg 
for nuthin’, no suh.” 

“Well, I’ll teach you something,” I said. “I’ll 
teach you to keep a civil tongue in your head, at 
least.” 

“Yes, suh, yes, suh,” be said, “I always is, I always 

82 


PADAN-ARAM 


tries to be, I just didn’t know; nor suh, I axes your 
pardon. I didn’ mean nuthin’ in the worl\” 

‘‘ ‘ Now go in there and learn to behave yourself in the 
future,” I said. 

“Yes, suh, I will.” And, with another bow, and a 
side look at Dix, who was now growling ominously, he 
let himself in at the door and I passed on forward. 


S3 


IX 

T PITCH MY TENT 

When, a little later, my small charges were brought 
back to their mother (to whom I had explained their 
absence), it was by the young lady herself, and I never 
saw a more grateful picture than that young girl, in 
her fresh travelling costume, convoying those children 
down the car aisle. Her greeting of the tired mother 
was a refreshment, and a minute after she had gone 
the mother offered me a part of a substantial supply 
of sandwiches which she had brought her, so that I 
found myself not quite so much in sympathy as before 
with the criticism of the road that was now being freely 
bandied about the car, and which appeared to have 
made all the passengers as one. 

Not long after this we dropped the private car at a 
station and proceeded on without it. We had, how- 
ever, not gone far when we stopped and were run into a 
siding and again waited, and after a time, a train 
whizzed by us — a special train with but two private cars 
on it. It was going at a clipping rate, but it did not run 
so fast that we did not recognize the private car we had 
dropped some way back, and it soon became known 
throughout our train that we had been sidetracked to 
let a special with private cars have the right-of-way. I 
84 


I PITCH MY TENT 


confess that my gorge rose at this, and when the man ii 
front of me declared that we were the most patient people 
on earth to give public franchises, pay for travelling on 
trains run by virtue of them, and then stand being 
shoved aside and inconvenienced out of all reason to 
allow a lot of bloated dead-heads to go ahead of us in 
their special trains, I chimed in with him heartily. 

“Well, the road belongs to them, don’t it?” inquired 
a thin man with a wheezing voice. “That was Canter’s 
private train, and he took on the Argand car at that 
station back there.” 

“‘They own the road!’ How do they own it? 
How did they get it?” demanded the first speaker 
warmly. 

“Why, you know how they got it. They got it in 
the panic — that is, they got the controlling interest.” 

“Yes, and then ran the stock down till they had got 
control and then reorganized and cut out those that 
wouldn’t sell — or couldn’t — the widows and orphans 
and infants — that’s the way they got it.” 

“Well, the court upheld it?” 

“Yes, under the law they had had made themselves 
to suit themselves. You know how ’twas! You were 
there when ’twas done and saw how they flung their 
money around — or rather the Argand money — for I 
don’t believe Canter and his set own the stock at all. 
I’ll bet a thousand dollars that every share is up as 
collateral in old Argand’s bank.” 

“Oh! Well, it’s all the same thing. They stand in 
together. They run the bank — the bank lends money; 

85 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

they buy the stock and put it up for the loan, and then 
run the road.” 

“And us,” chipped in the other; for they had now 
gotten into a high good-humor with each other — “they 
get our franchises and our money, and then side-track 
us without breakfast while they go sailing by — in cars 
that they call theirs, but which we pay for. I do think 
we are the biggest fools!” 

“That's Socialistic!” said his friend again. “You've 
been reading that fellow’s articles in the Sunday papers. 
What’s his name?” 

“No, I’ve been thinking. I don’t care what it is, 
it’s the truth, and I’m tired of it.” 

“They say he’s a Jew,” interrupted the former. 

“ I don’t care what he is, it’s the truth,” asserted the 
other doggedly. 

“Well, I rather think it is,” agreed his friend; “but 
then, I’m hungry, and there isn’t even any water on the 
• car.” 

“And they guzzle champagne!” sneered the other, 
“which we pay for,” he added. 

“You’re a stockholder?” 

“Yes, in a small way; but I might as well own stock 
in a paving-company to Hell. My father helped to 
build this road and used to take great pride in it. They 
used to give the stockholders then a free ride once a 
year to the annual meeting, and it made them all feel 
as if they owned the road.” 

“But now they give free passes not to the stock- 
holders, but to the legislators and the judges.” 


I PITCH MY TENT 


“It pays better,” said his friend, and they both 
laughed. It appeared, indeed, rather a good joke to them 
— or, at least, there was nothing which they could do 
about it, so they might as well take it good-humoredly. 

By this time I had learned that my neighbor with the 
five children was the wife of a man named McNeil, 
who was a journeyman machinist, but had been thrown 
out of work by a strike in another city, and, after waiting 
around for months, had gone North to find employment, 
and having at last gotten it, had now sent for them to 
come on. She had not seen him for months, and she 
was looking forward to it now with a happiness that was 
quite touching. Even the discomforts of the night could 
not dull her joy in the anticipation of meeting her hus- 
band — and she constantly enheartened her droopy little 
brood with the prospect of soon seeing their “dear 
Daddy.” 

Finally after midday we arrived. 

I shall never forget the sight and smells of that 
station, if I live to be a thousand years old. It seemed 
to me a sort of temporary resting-place for lost souls — 
and I was one of them. Had Dante known it, he must 
have pictured it, with its reek and grime. The pro- 
cession of tired, bedraggled travellers that streamed in 
through the black gateways to meet worn watchers with 
wan smiles on their tired faces, or to look anxiously 
and in vain for friends who had not come, or else who 
had come and gone. And outside the roar of the 
grimy current that swept through the black street. 

I had no one to look for; so, after helping my neighbor 

87 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and her frowsy little brood off, I sauntered along with 
Dix at my heel, feeling about as lonely as a man can feel 
on this populated earth. After gazing about and re- 
fusing sternly to meet the eye of any of the numerous 
cabmen who wildly waved their whips toward me, 
shouting: “Kebsuh — kebsuh — keb — keb — keb?” with 
wearying iteration, I had about made up my mind to 
take the least noisy of them, when I became conscious 
that my fellow-traveller, Mrs. McNeil wit'll her little 
clan, was passing out of the station unescorted and was 
looking about in a sort of lost way. On my speaking to 
her, her face brightened for a moment, but clouded 
again instantly, as she said, “Oh! sir, he’s gone! He 
came to meet me this morning; but the train was late 
and he couldn’t wait or he’d lose his job, so he had to go, 
and the kind man at the gate told me he left the message 
for me. But however shall I get there with all the 
children, for I haven’t a cent left!” 

The tears welled up in her eyes as she came to her 
sad little confession. And I said, “Oh! Well, I think 
we can manage it somehow. You have his address?’ 

“Oh! yes, sir, I have it here,” and she pulled out an 
empty little pocket-book from the breast of her worn 
frock, and while she gave the baby to the eldest girl to 
hold, tremblingly opened the purse. In it was only a 
crumpled letter and, besides this, a key — these were all. 
She opened the letter tenderly and handed it to me. 
I read the address and fastened it in my memory. 

“Now.” I said, “we’ll straighten this out directly. 
I turned and called a hackman. “I want a carriage.” 

88 


I PITCH MY TENT 


There was a rush, but I was firm and insisted on a 
hack. However, as none was to be had, I was fain to 
content myself with a one-horse cab of much greater age 
than dimension. 

Bundling them in and directing the driver to go 
around and get the trunk from the baggage-room, I 
mounted beside him and took Dix between my feet and 
one of the children in my arms, and thus made my entry 
into the city of my future home. My loneliness had 
somehow disappeared. 

My prot^gde’s destination turned out to be a long 
way off, quite in one of the suburbs of the city, where 
working people had their little homes — a region I was 
to become better acquainted with later. As we began 
to pass bakeries and cook-shops, the children began 
once more to clamor to their mother for something to 
eat, on which the poor thing tried to quiet them with 
promises of what they should have when they reached 
home. But I could perceive that her heart was low 
within her, and I stopped at a cook-shop and bought a 
liberal allowance of bread and jam and cookies, on 
which the young things fell to like famished wolves, 
while their mother overwhelmed me with blessings. 

We had not gone far, and were still in the centre of 
the city, when a handsome open carriage drove by us, 
and as it passed, there sat in it the young lady I had 
seen on the train, with a pleasant looking elderly man, 
whom I conjectured to be her father, and who appeared 
in a very good-humor with her or himself. As I was 
gazing at them, her eyes fell full into mine, and after a 
89 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

half-moment’s mystification, she recognized me as I 
lifted my hat, and her face lit up with a pleasant smile 
of recognition. I found my feelings divided between 
pleasure at her sweet return of my bow and chagrin that 
she should find me in such a predicament; for I knew 
what a ridiculous figure I must cut with the dog between 
my feet and a frowsy child, thickly smeared with jam, 
in my arms. In fact, I could see that the girl was talk- 
ing and laughing spiritedly with her father, evidently 
about us. I confess to a feeling of shame at the figure 
I must cut, and I wondered if she would not think I 
had lied to her in saying that I had never met them be- 
fore. I did not know that the smile had been for Dix. 

When we reached, after a good hour’s drive, the little 
street for which we were bound, I found my forecast 
fairly correct. The dingy little house, on which was the 
rusted number given Mrs. McNeil in her husband’s 
letter, was shut up and bore no evidence of having been 
opened, except a small flower-pot with a sprig of green 
in it in a dusty, shutterless window. It was the sort 
of house that is a stove in summer and an ice-box in the 
winter. And there was a whole street of them. After 
we had knocked several times and I had tried to peep 
over the fence at the end of the street, the door of an 
adjoining tenement opened, and a slatternly, middle- 
aged woman peeped out. 

“Are you Mrs. McNeil?” she asked. 

“Yes.” 

“Well, here’s your key. Your man told me to tell 
you ’t if you came while he was at work, you’d find 
90 


I PITCH MY TENT 


something to eat in the back room ’t he’d cooked this 
mornin’ before he went to work. The train was late, 
he said, and he couldn’t wait; but he’d be home to- 
night, and he’d bring some coal when he came. What 
a fine lot o’ children you have. They ought to keep 
you in cinders and wood. I wish I had some as big as 
that; but mine are all little. My two eldest died of 
scarlet fever two years ago. Drainage, they said.” 

She had come out and unlocked the door and was 
now turning away. 

“ I think your man had someone to take the upstairs 
front room; but he didn’t come — you’ll have to get some- 
one to do it and you double up. The Argand Estate 
charges such rent, we all have to do that. Well, if I 
can help you, I’m right here.” 

I was struck by her kindness to the forlorn stranger, 
and the latter’s touching recognition of it, expressed 
more in looks and in tone than in words. 

Having helped them into the house, which was sub- 
stantially empty, only one room having even a pretence 
of furniture in it, and that merely a bed, a mattress and 
a broken stove, I gave the poor woman a little of my 
slender stock of money and left her murmuring her 
thanks and assurances that I had already done too 
much for them. In fact, I had done nothing. 

As my finances were very low, I determined to find 
a boarding-house instead of wasting them at a hotel. I 
accordingly stopped at a sizable house which I recog- 
nized as a boarding-house on a street in a neighborhood 
91 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

which might, from the old houses with their handsome 
doors and windows, have once been fashionable, though 
fashion had long since taken its flight to a newer and 
gaudier part of the town, and the mansions were now 
giving place to shops and small grocers’ markets. A 
wide door with a fan-shaped transom gave it dignity. 
A large wistaria vine coiled up to the top of a somewhat 
dilapidated porch with classical pillars lent it distinction. 
The landlady, Mrs. Kale, a pleasant looking, kindly 
woman, offered me a small back-room on reasonable 
terms, it being, as she said, the dull season; and, 
having arranged for Dix in a dingy little livery stable 
near by, I took it “ temporarily,” till I could look 
around. 

I found the company somewhat nondescript — ranging 
all the way from old ladies with false fronts and cracked 
voices to uppish young travelling men and their rather 
sad-looking wives. 

Among the boarders, the two who interested me most 
were two elderly ladies, sisters, whose acquaintance I 
made the day after my arrival. They did not take their 
meals at the common table, but, as I understood, in their 
own apartment in the third story. They were a quaint 
and pathetic pair, very meagre, very shabby, and mani- 
festly very poor. There was an air of mystery about 
them, and Mrs. Kale treated them with a respect which 
she paid to no others of her variegated household. They 
occasionally honored the sitting-room with their pres- 
ence on Sunday evenings, by Mrs. Kale’s especial invi- 
tation, and I was much diverted with them. They were 
92 


I PITCH MY TENT 


known as the Miss Tippses; but Mrs. Kale always 
spoke of them as “Miss Pansy” and “Miss Pinky.” It 
seems that she had known them in her youth, “back 
East.” 

My acquaintance with the two old ladies at this time 
was entirely accidental. The morning after my arrival, 
as I started out to look around for an office, and also to 
take Dix for a walk, as well as to take a look at the city, 
I fell in with two quaint-looking old women who slipped 
out of the door just ahead of me, one of them slightly 
lame, and each with a large bundle in her arms. They 
were dressed in rusty black, and each wore a veil, which 
quite concealed her features. But as they limped along, 
engaged in an animated conversation, their voices 
were so refined as to arrest my attention, and I was 
guilty of the impropriety of listening to them, partly out 
of sheer idleness, and partly because I wanted to know 
something of my boarding-house and of my fellow 
boarders. They were talking about a ball of the night 
before, an account of which they had read in the papers, 
or rather, as I learned, in a copy of a paper which they 
had borrowed, and they were as much interested in it 
as if they had been there themselves. “Oh, wouldn’t 
you have liked to see it?” said one. “It must have 

been beautiful. I should have liked to see Miss ” 

(I could not catch the name). “She must have been 
exquisite in chiffon and lace. She is so lovely anyhow. 
I did not know she had returned.” 

“I wonder Mr. did not tell us.” Again I failed 

to hear the name. 


93 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“For a very good reason, I suppose. He did not 
know.” 

“He is dead in love with her.” 

“Oh, you are so romantic!” said the other, whom I 
took from her figure and her feebleness to be the elder 
of the two. 

“No; but any one can tell that at a glance.” 

“What a pity he could not marry her. Then we 
should be sure to see her as a bride.” 

The other laughed. “What an idea! We have 
nothing fit to go even to the church in.” 

“Why, we could go in the gallery. Oh, this bundle is 
so heavy! I don’t believe I can ever get there to- day.” 

“Oh, yes, you can. Now come on. Don’t give up. 
Here, rest it on the fence a moment.” 

As the lame one attempted to lift the bundle to rest 
it on the fence, it slipped to the ground, and she gave 
a little exclamation of fear. 

“Oh, dear! suppose it should get soiled!” 

I stepped forward and lifted it for her, and to my 
surprise found it very heavy. Then, as they thanked 
me, it occurred to me to offer to carry the bundle for 
them to the street car for which I supposed them bound. 
There was a little demur, and I added, “ I am at Mrs. 
Kale’s also. I have just come.” This appeared to 
relieve one of them at least, but the other said, “Oh, 
but we are not going to the street car. We don’t ride 
in street cars.” 

“Yes; it is so unhealthy,” said the younger one. 
“People catch all sorts of diseases on the car.” 

94 


I PITCH MY TENT 


Thinking them rather airy, I was about to hand the 
bundle back, but as I was going their way I offered to 
carry the bundles for both of them as far as I was going. 
This proved to be quite twenty blocks, for I could not 
in decency return the bundles. So we went on together, 
I feeling at heart rather ashamed to be lugging two large 
bundles through the streets for two very shabby-looking 
old women whose names I did not know. We soon, 
however, began to talk, and I drew out from them a 
good deal about Mrs. Kale and her kindness. Also, 
that they had seen much better days, to which one of 
them particularly was very fond of referring. It 
seemed that they had lived East — they carefully guarded 
the exact place — and had once had interests in a rail- 
road which their father had built and largely owned. 
They were manifestly anxious to make this clearly 
understood. After his death they had lived on their 
dividends, until, on a sudden, the dividends had 
stopped. They found that the railroad with which 
their road connected had passed into new hands — had 
been “bought up” by a great syndicate, their lawyer 
had informed them, and refused any longer to make 
traffic arrangements with the road. This had destroyed 
the value of their property, but they had refused to sell 
their holdings at the low price offered — “As we probably 
ought to have done,” sighed one of them. 

“Not at all! I am glad we didn’t,” asserted the 
other. 

“Well, sister, we got nothing— we lost everything, 
didn’t we?” 


95 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I don't know. I am only glad that we held out. 
That man knows that he robbed us." 

“Well, that doesn't help us." 

“Yes, it does. It helps me to know that he knows 
it." 

“ Who was it ? " I asked. 

“ Oh, there was a syndicate. I only know the names 
of two of them — a man named Argand, and a man 
named Canter. And our lawyer was named McSheen." 

Argand was a name which I recalled in connection 
with Mr. Poole's interest in the Railways in the case 
I have mentioned. 

“ Well, you held on to your stock. You have it now, 
then?" I foresaw a possible law-case against Argand, 
and wondered if he was the owner of the Argand Estate, 
which I had already heard of twice since my arrival. 

“ No," said one of them, “ they bought up the stock 
of all the other people, and then they did something 
which cut us out entirely. What was it they did, 
sister?" 

“Reorganized." 

“And then we came on here to see about it, and spent 
everything else that we had in trying to get it back, but 
we lost our case, And since then " 

“ Well, sister, we are keeping the gentleman. Thank 
you very much," said the younger of the two quickly, 
to which her sister added her thanks as well. I insisted 
at first on going further with them, but seeing that they 
were evidently anxious to be rid of me, I gave them their 
bundles and passed on. 


96 


I PITCH MY TENT 


Among the boarders one of those I found most in- 
teresting was a young man named Kalender, by whom 
I sat at the first meal after my arrival, and with whom I 
struck up an acquaintance. He was a reporter for a 
morning paper of very advanced methods, and he was 
pre-eminently a person fitted for his position: a cocky 
youth with a long, keen nose and a bullet head covered 
with rather wiry, black hair, heavy black brows over 
keen black eyes, and an ugly mouth with rather small 
yellowish teeth. He had as absolute confidence in him- 
self as any youth I ever met, and he either had, or 
made a good pretence of having, an intimate knowledge 
of not only all the public affairs of the city, but of the 
private affairs of every one in the city. Before we had 
finished smoking our cigarettes he had given me what 
he termed “the lay out” of the entire community, and 

by his account it was “the rottenest town in the 

universe” — a view I subsequently had reason to rectify 
—and he proposed to get out of it as soon as he could 
and go to New York, which, to his mind, was the only 
town worth living in in the country (he having, as I 
learned later, lived there just three weeks). 

His paper, he said frankly, paid only for sensational 
articles, and was just then “jumping on a lot of the 
high-flyers, because that paid,” but “they” gave him a 
latitude to write up whatever he pleased, because they 
knew he could dress up anything — from a murder to a 
missionary meeting. “Oh! it don’t matter what you 
write about,” said he airily, “so you know how to do 
it” — a bit of criticism suggestive of a better-known critic. 
97 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I was much impressed by his extraordinary and ex- 
tensive experience. In the course of our conversation 
I mentioned casually the episode of the delayed train 
and the private car. 

“The Argands’ car, you say?” 

I told him that that was what some one had said. 

“That would make a good story,” he declared. 
“I think I’ll write that up — Fd have all the babies 
dying and the mothers fainting and an accident just 
barely averted by a little girl waving a red shawl, see — 
while the Argand car dashed by with a party eating and 
drinking and throwing champagne-bottles out of the 
window. But I've got to go and see the Mayor to 
ascertain why he appointed the new city comptroller, 
and then Fve got to drop by the theatre and give the 
new play a roast — so I’ll hardly have time to roast those 
Argands and Leighs, though I’d like to do it to teach 
them not to refuse me round-trip passes next time I ask 
for them. I tell you what you do,” he added, modestly, 
“you write it up — you say you have written for the 
press?” 

“Oh! yes, very often — and for the magazines. I 
have had stories published in ” 

“Well, that’s all right. (Kalender was not a good 
listener.) I’ll look it over and touch it up — put the 
fire in it and polish it off. You write it up, say — about 
a column. I can cut it down all right — and I’ll call 
by here for it about eleven, after the theatre. 

It was a cool request — coolly made; but I was fool 
enough to accede to it. I felt much aggrieved over the 
98 


I PITCH MY TENT 


treatment of us by the railway company, and was not 
sorry to air my grievance at the same time that I secured 
a possible opening. I accordingly spent all the after- 
noon writing my account of the inconvenience and 
distress occasioned the travelling public by the incon- 
siderateness of the railway management, discussing, by 
the way, the fundamental principle of ownership in 
quasi-public corporations, and showing that all rights 
which they claimed were derived from the people. I 
mentioned no names and veiled my allusions; but I paid 
a tribute to the kind heart of the Angel of Mercy who 
succored the children. I spent some hours at my com- 
position and took much pride in it when completed. 
Then, as I had not been out at all to see the town, I 
addressed the envelope in which I had placed my story 
to Mr. Kalender, and leaving it for him, walked out 
into the wilderness. 

On my return the paper was gone. 

Next morning I picked up one paper after another, 
but did not at first find my contribution. An account 
of a grand ball the night before, at which an extraordi- 
nary display of wealth must have been made, was given 
the prominent place in most of them. But as I did not 
know the persons whose costumes were described with 
such Byzantine richness of vocabulary, I passed it by. 
The only thing referring to a railway journey was a 
column article, in a sensational sheet called The 
Trumpet , headed, BRUTALITY OF MILLIONAIRE 
BANKER. RAILWAY PRESIDENT STARVES 
POOR PASSENGERS. There under these glaring 
99 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

headlines, I at last discovered my article, so distorted 
and mutilated as to be scarcely recognizable. The 
main facts of the delay and its cause were there as I 
wrote them. My discussion of derivative rights was 
retained. But the motive was boldly declared to be 
brutal hatred of the poor. And to make it worse, the 
names of both Mr. Leigh and Mrs. Argand were given 
as having been present in person, gloating over the 
misery they had caused, while a young lady, whose name 
was not given, had thrown scraps out of the window for 
starving children and dogs to scramble for. 

To say that I was angry expresses but a small part of 
the truth. The allusion to the young lady had made 
my blood boil. What would she think if she should 
know I had had a hand in that paper ? I waited at red 
heat for my young man, and had he appeared before I 
cooled down, he would have paid for the liberty he took 
with me. When he did appear, however, he was so 
innocent of having offended me that I could scarcely 
bear to attack him. 

“Well, did you see our story ?” he asked gayly. 

“Yes — your story — I saw ” 

“Well, I had to do a little to it to make it go,” he 
said condescendingly, “but you did very well — you’ll 
learn.” 

“Thank you. I don’t want to learn that,” I said 
hotly, “I never saw anything so butchered. There was 
not the slightest foundation for all that rot — it was made 
up out of whole cloth.” I was boiling about Miss 
Leigh. 


100 


I PITCH MY TENT 


"Pooh-pooh! My dear boy, you’ll never make an 
editor. " I never fake an interview,” he said virtuously. 
"Lots of fellows do; but I don’t. But if a man will 
give me two lines, I can give him two columns — and 
good ones, too. Why, we had two extras — what with 
that and the grand ball last night. The newsboys are 
crying it all over town.” 

"I don’t care if they are. I don’t want to be an 
editor if one has to tell such atrocious lies as that. 
But I don’t believe editors have to do that, and I know 
reputable editors don’t. Why, you have named a man 
who was a hundred miles away.” 

He simply laughed. 

"Well, I’m quite willing to get the credit of that paper. 
That’s business. We’re trying to break down the Leigh 
interests, and the Argands are mixed up with ’em. Coll 
McSheen was in the office last night. He’s counsel for 
the Argands, but — you don’t know Coll McSheen?” 

"I do not,” I said shortly. 

"He’s deep. You know you write better than you 
talk,” he added patronizingly. "I tell you what I’ll 
do — if you’ll write me every day on some live topic ” 

"I’ll never write you a line again on any topic, alive 
or dead, unless you die yourself, when I’ll write that 
you are the biggest liar I ever saw except my Jeams.” 

I had expected he would resent my words, but he did 
not. He only laughed, and said, "That’s a good line. 
Write on that.” 

I learned later that he had had a slight raise of salary 
on the paper he palmed off as his. I could only console 
101 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

myself with the hope that Miss Leigh would not see the 
article. 

But Miss Leigh did see the appreciation of her father 
in the writing of which I had had a hand, and it cost me 
many a dark hour of sad repining. 


102 


A NEW GIRL 


This is how the young lady heard of it. Miss Leigh 
had been at home but an hour or two and had only had 
time to change her travelling costume for a suit of light 
blue with a blue hat to match, which was very becoming 
to her, and order the carriage to drive down and get her 
father, when a visitor was announced: Miss Milly Mc- 
Sheen, an old schoolmate — and next moment a rather 
large, flamboyante girl of about Miss Leigh’s own age 
or possibly a year or two older, bounced into the room 
as if she had been shot in out of one of those mediaeval 
engines which flung men into walled towns. 

She began to talk volubly even before she was actu- 
ally in the room; she talked all through her energetic if 
hasty embrace of her friend, and all the time she was 
loosening the somewhat complicated fastening of a 
dotted veil which, while it obscured, added a certain 
charm to a round, florid, commonplace, but good- 
humored face in which smiled two round, shallow blue 
eyes. 

“Well, my dear,” she began while yet outside the 
door, “I thought you never were coming back! Never! 
And I believe if I hadn’t finally made up my mind to 
get you back you would have stayed forever in that 
nasty, stuck-up city of Brotherly Love.” 

103 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Miss Leigh a little airily observed that that title ap- 
plied to Philadelphia, and she had only passed through 
Philadelphia on a train one night. 

“Oh! well, it was some kind of love, I’ll be bound, 
and some one’s else brother, too, that kept you away so 

long-” 

“No, it was not — not even some one else’s brother,” 
replied Miss Leigh. 

“Oh! for Heaven’s sake, don’t tell me that’s wrong. 
Why, I’ve been practising that all summer. It sounds 
so grammatical — so New Yorkish.” 

“ 1 can’t help it. It may be New Yorkish, but it isn’t 
grammatical,” said Miss Leigh. “ But I never expected 
to get back earlier. My Aunt had to look into some of 
her affairs in the East and had to settle some matters 
with a lawyer down South, a friend of my father’s — an 
old gentleman who used to be one of her husband’s 
partners and is her trustee or something, and I had to 
wait till they got matters settled.” 

“Well, I’m glad you are here in time. I was so 
afraid you wouldn’t be, that I got Pa to telegraph and 
have your car put on the president’s special train that 
was coming through and had the right-of-way. I told 
him that I didn’t see that because your father had re- 
signed from the directory was any reason why you 
shouldn’t be brought on the train.” 

“Were we indebted to you for that attention?” 
Eleanor Leigh’s voice had a tone of half incredulity. 

“Yep — I am the power behind the throne just at 
present. Pa and old Mr. Canter have buried the 
104 


A NEW GIRL 


hatchet and are as thick as thieves since their new deal, 
and Jim Canter told me his car was coming through on 
a special. Oh! you ought to hear him the way he says. 
My car y and throws his chest out! So I said I wanted 
him to find out where you were on the road— -on 
what train, I mean — and pick you up, and he said he 
would.” 

“Oh! I see,” said Miss Leigh, looking somewhat 
annoyed. 

“He did, didn’t he?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, you know Jim Canter is a very promising 
young man, much more so than he is a fulfiller. What 
are you so serious about? You look as ” 

“Nothing — only I don’t wish to be beholden to — I 
was just wondering what right we have to stop trains 
full of people who have paid for their tickets and ” 

“What!” exclaimed the other girl in astonishment, 
“what right? Why, our fathers are directors, aren’t 
th y — at least, my father is — and own a block of the 
stock that controls ?” 

“Yes; but all these people — who pay — and who had 
no breakfast?” 

“Oh! don’t you worry about them — they’ll get along 
somehow — and if they pay they’ll look out for them- 
selves without your doing it. My way is to make all I 
can out of them and enjoy it while I can — that’s what 
Pa says.” 

“Yes,” said Miss Leigh acquiescingly, “but I’m not 
sure that it’s right.” 


105 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

« 

“You’ve been reading that man’s articles,” declared 
Miss McSheen. “ I know — I have, too — everybody has 
— all the girls. I am a socialist — aren’t they terribly 
striking! He’s so good-looking. Pa says he’s a Jew 
and an anarchist, and ought to be in jail.” 

“Are you speaking of Mr. Wolffert?” 

“Yes, of course. Now you need not make out you 
don’t know him; because they say ” 

“Yes, I know him very well,” said Miss Leigh, so 
stiffly that her guest paused and changed her tone. 

“Well, anyhow, my dear, you are just in time. We 
are going to have the biggest thing we’ve ever had in 
this town. I’ve almost died laughing over it already.” 

“What is it?” 

“ Wait. I’m going to tell you all about it. You know 
it was all my idea. Harriet Minturn claims the whole 
credit for it now that I’ve made it go — says she first 
suggested it, and I assure you, my dear, she never opened 
her head about it till I had all the girls wild about it, 
and had arranged for the costumes and had gotten the 
Count to promise ” 

“What is it?” interrupted her hostess again, laugh- 
ing. 

“Wait, my dear, I’m going to tell you all about it. 
The Count’s a socialist, too. He says he is — but you 
mustn’t tell that; he told me in the strictest confidence. 
Well, the Count’s to go as courtier of the court of — 
what’s the name of that old king or emperor, or what- 
ever he was, that conquered that country — you know 
what I mean ” 


106 


A NEW GIRL 


“No, indeed, I do not — and I haven’t the least idea 
what you are talking about.” 

“Oh! pshaw! I know perfectly well, and you do, too. 
The Count bet me I’d forget it and I bet him a gold 
cigar-holder I wouldn’t— what is his name ? Won’t the 
Count look handsome with lace ruffles and gold braid 
all over his chest and coat-tails, and a cocked hat. He’s 
been showing me the way they dance in his country. I 
almost died laughing over it — only it makes me so dizzy, 
they never reverse — just whirl and whirl and whirl. 
You know he’s a real count? Yes, my father’s taken 
the trouble to hunt that up. He said he wasn’t 
‘going to let a d d dago come around me with- 

out anybody knowing who or what he is.’ Ain’t that 
like Pa?” 

“I — I — don’t think I ever met your father,” said 
Eleanor stiffly. 

“Oh! that’s a fact. Well, ’tis — ’tis just exactly like 
him. As soon as the Count began to come around our 
house — a good deal — I mean, really, quite a good deal 
— you understand?” said the girl, tossing her blonde 
head, “what must Pa do but go to work and hunt 
him up. He thinks Jim Canter is a winner, but I 
tell him Jimmy’s bespoke.” She looked at her hostess 
archly. 

“What did he find out?” inquired Miss Leigh coldly, 
“and how did he do it?” 

“Why, he just ran him down,” explained the girl 
easily, “just as he does anybody he wants to know 
about — put a man on him, you know.” 

107 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Oh! I see.” Miss Leigh froze up a little; but the 
other girl did not notice it. 

“Only this one was somebody on the other side, of 
course, and he found out that he's all right. He's a real 
count. He's the third son of Count Pushkin, who was 
— let me see — a counsellor of his emperor, the Emperor 
of Sweden.” 

“I didn't know they had an emperor in Sweden. 
He's a new one.” 

“Haven't they? Oh! well, maybe it was the King of 
Sweden, or the Emperor of Russia — I don't know — they 
are all alike to me. I never could keep them apart, even 
at Miss de Pense's. I only know he's a real count, and' 
I won a hundred dollars from Pa on a bet that he was. 
And he hated to pay it! He bet that he was a cook or a 
barber. And I bet he wasn't. And, oh! you know it's 
an awfully good joke on him — for he was a waiter in 
New York for a while.” 

“A what?” 

“A waiter — oh, just for a little while after he came 
over — before his remittances arrived. But I made Pa 
pay up, because he said cook or barber. I put it in 
this hat, see, ain’t it a wonder?” She turned herself 
around before a mirror and admired her hat which 
was, indeed as Miss Leigh was forced to admit, “a 
wonder.” 

“You know it’s just like the hat Gabrielle Lightfoot 
wears in the ‘Star of the Harem' when she comes in in 
the balloon. I got her to let me copy it — exactly.” 

“ You did ? How did you manage that ? ” 

108 


A NEW GIRL 


“Why, you see, Jimmy Canter knows her, and he 
asked Harriet and me to supper to meet her, and I de- 
clare she nearly made me die laughing — you know she’s 
a real sweet girl — Jimmy says she ” 

“Who chaperoned you?” asked Miss Leigh, as she 
began to put on her gloves. 

“ Chaperon ? My dear, that’s where the fun came in 
— we didn’t have any chaperon. I pretended that Har- 
riet and the Count were married and called her Countess, 
and she was so flattered at being given the title that she 
was pleased to death — though you know, she’s really 
dead in love with Jimmy Canter, and he hardly looks at 
her. If he’s in love with any one — except Mr. James 
Canter, Jr. — it’s with some one else I know.” She 
nodded her head knowingly. 

“I’m afraid I have to go now,” said Miss Leigh, “my 
father expects me to come for him,” she glanced at a 
jewelled watch. She had stiffened up slightly. 

“Well, of course, you’ll come?” 

“To what?’’ 

“To our ball — that’s what it is, you know, though it’s 
for a charity, and we make others pay for it. Why 
shouldn’t they? I haven’t decided yet what charity. 
Harriet wants it to be for a home for cats. You’d know 
she’d want that now, wouldn’t you? She’ll be in there 
herself some day. But I’m not going to let it go for 
anything she wants. She’s claiming now that she got 
it up, and I’m just going to show her who did. I’m 
thinking of giving it to that young preacher you met 
in the country two years ago and got so interested 
109 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

in ’t you got Dr. Capon to bring him here as his 
assistant.” 

“You couldn’t give it to a better cause,” said Miss 
Leigh. “I wonder how he is coming on ?” 

“ I guess you know all right. But Pa says,” pursued 
Miss McSheen without heeding further the interrup- 
tion, “we are ruining the poor, and the reason they won’t 
work is that we are always giving them money. You 
know they’re striking on our lines — some of them? 
I haven’t decided yet what to give it to. Oh! you 
ought to see the Doctor. He’s the gayest of the gay. 
He came to see me the other day. It almost made me 
die laughing. You know he’s dead in love with your 
Aunt. I used to think it was you; but Pa says I’m 
always thinking everybody is in love with you — even 
the Count — but he says — However ” 

“I’ll tell you what!” said Miss Leigh suddenly, “I’ll 
come to the ball if you’ll give the proceeds to Mr. Mar- 
vel for his poor people.” 

“Done! See there! what did I tell you! I thought 
you weren’t so pious for nothing all on a sudden ” 

“Milly, you’re a goose,” said Miss Leigh, picking up 
her sunshade. 

“I’m a wise one, though — what was it our teacher 
used to tell us about the geese giving the alarm some- 
where? But I don’t care. I’m the treasurer and pay 
the bills. Pa says the man that holds the bag gets the 
swag. Bring your father. We’ll get something grand 
out of him. He always gives to everything. I’ll call him 
up and tell him to be sure and come. You know they’ve 
110 


A NEW GIRL 


landed the deal. Pa says every one of them has made 
a pile. Your father might have made it, too, if he’d 
come in, but I think he was fighting them or something, 
I don’t quite understand it — anyhow it’s all done now, 
and I’m going to hold Pa up for the pearl necklace he 
promised to give me. There’s a perfect beauty at Setter 
& Stoneberg’s, only seventeen thousand, and I believe 
they’ll take ten if it’s planked down in cold cash. Pa 
says the way to get a man is to put down the cold cash 
before him and let him fasten his eye on it. If he’s a 
Jew he says he’ll never let it go. I tell him by the same 
token he must be a Jew himself; because he holds on 
to all the money he ever lays his eye on.” 

“Can I take you down-town anywhere?” inquired 
Miss Leigh, in a rather neutral voice. 

“ No, my dear, just let me fix my hat. I have to go 
the other way. In fact, I told the Count that I was 
going up to the park for a little spin, and he asked if 
he couldn’t come along. I didn’t want him, of course 
— men are so in the way in the morning, don’t you think 
so ? Is that quite right ? ” She gave her head a toss to 
test the steadiness of her hat. 

“ Quite,” said Miss Leigh. 

“Well, good-by. I’ll count on you then. Oh! I tell 
you — among the entertainments, the Count is going to 
perform some wonderful sleight-of-hand tricks with 
cards. My dear, he’s a magician! He can do anything 
with cards. Heavens! it’s after one. The Count — 
good-by — good-by. ” 

And as Miss Leigh entered her victoria the young 

111 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

lady rushed off, up the street, straining her eyes in the 
direction of the park. 

That night “the ball, ,, as Miss McSheen called it, 
came off and was a huge success, as was duly chronicled 
in all the morning papers next day with an elaboration 
of description of millinery in exact proportion to the 
degree of prominence of the wearer in the particular 
circle in which the editor or his reporter moved or as- 
pired to move. Mrs. Argand stood first in “Wine-col- 
ored velvet, priceless lace,” of the sort that reporters of 
the female sex deem dearest, and “diamonds and ru- 
bies” that would have staggered Sinbad, the sailor. 
Miss McSheen ran her a close second, in “ rose-colored 
satin, and sapphires,” spoken of as “priceless heir- 
looms.” Miss Leigh shone lower down in “chiffon, 
lace, and pearls of great price.” So they went columns- 
full, all priceless, all beautiful, all superlative, till super- 
latives were exhausted, and the imagination of the 
reporters ran riot in an excess of tawdry color and 
English. 

Among the men especially lauded were, first, a certain 
Mr. James Canter, son and partner of “ the famous Mr. 
Canter, the capitalist and financier,” who gave promise 
of rivalling his father in his “notorious ability,” and, 
secondly, a Count Pushkin, the “distinguished scion of 
a noble house of international reputation who was hon- 
oring the city with his distinguished presence, and was 
generally credited with having led captive the heart of 
one of the city’s fairest and wealthiest daughters.” So 
ran the record. And having nothing to do, I read that 
112 


A NEW GIRL 


morning the account and dwelt on the only name I rec- 
ognized, the young lady of the white chiffon and pearls, 
and wondered who the men were whose names stood 
next to hers. 


•e? 


113 


XI 

ELEANOR LEIGH 


Miss Leigh also read the papers that morning and 
with much amusement till in one of them — the most 
sensational of all the morning journals — she came on 
an article which first made her heart stop beating and 
then set it to racing with sheer anger. To think that 
such a slander could be uttered ! She would have liked 
to make mince-meat of that editor. He was always 
attacking her father. 

A little later she began to think of the rest of the 
article! What was the truth ? Did they have the right 
to stop the train and hold it back ? This sort of thing 
was what a writer whom she knew denied in a series of 
papers which a friend of hers, a young clergyman who 
worked among the poor, had sent her and which the 
press generally was denouncing. 

She had for some time been reading these papers 
that had been appearing in the press periodically. 
They were written by a person who was generally 
spoken of as “a Jew/’ but who wrote with a pen which 
had the point of a rapier, and whose sentences ate into 
the steely plate of artificial convention like an acid. 
One of the things he had said had stuck in her memory. 
“As the remains of animalculae of past ages furnish, 
when compressed in almost infinite numbers, the lime- 
food on which the bone and muscle of the present race 
114 


ELEANOR LEIGH 

of cattle in limestone regions are built up, so the present 
big-boned race of the wealthy class live on the multi- 
tudinous class of the poor.” 

The summer before she had met the writer of these 
articles and he had made an impression on her which 
had not been effaced. She had not analyzed her feelings 
to ascertain how far this impression was due to his clas- 
sical face, his deep, luminous eyes, and his impassioned 
manner, yet certain it is that all of these had struck her. 

Perhaps, I should give just here a little more of Miss 
Eleanor Leigh’s history as I came to know of it later on. 
How I came to know of it may or may not be divulged 
later. But, at least, I learned it. She was the daughter 
of a gentleman who, until she came and began to tyran- 
nize over him, gave up all of his time and talents to 
building up enterprises of magnitude and amassing a 
fortune. He had showed abilities and ambition at 
college “back East,” where he came from, and when 
he first struck for the West and started out in life, it was 
in a region and amid surroundings which were just 
becoming of more than local importance as they a 
little later grew under the guidance of men of action 
like himself, to be of more than sectional importance. 
The new West as it was then had called to him im- 
periously and he had responded. Flinging himself into 
the current which was just beginning to take on force, 
he soon became one of the pilots of the development 
which, changing a vast region where roamed Indians 
and buffalo into a land of cities and railways, shortly 
made its mark on the Nation and, indeed, on the 
115 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

world, and he was before long swept quite away by it, 
leaving behind all the intellectual ambitions and dreams 
he had ever cherished and giving himself up soul and 
body to the pleasure he got out of his success as an 
organizer and administrator of large enterprises. 
Wealth at first was important to him, then it became, if 
not unimportant, at least of secondary importance to 
the power he possessed. Then it became of importance 
again — indeed of supreme importance; for the power 
he wielded was now dependent on wealth and great 
wealth. His associates were all men of large interests, 
and only one with similar interests could lead them. 
New conditions had come about of late and new 
methods which he could neither employ nor contend 
against successfully. 

As he looked back on it later it appeared a feverish 
dream through which he had passed Its rewards were 
undeniable: luxury, reputation and power beyond any- 
thing he had ever conceived of. Yet what had he not 
sacrificed for them! Everything that he had once held 
up before his mind as a noble ambition: study, reading, 
association with the great and noble of all time; art and 
love of art; appreciation of all except wealth that men 
have striven for through the ages; friendship — domestic 
joy — everything except riches and the power they bring. 
For as he thought over his past in his growing loneliness 
he found himself compelled to admit that he had sacri- 
ficed all the rest. He had married a woman he loved 
and admired. He had given her wealth and luxury in- 
stead of himself, and she had pined and died before he 
116 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


awakened to the tragic fact. He had grieved for her, 
but he could not conceal from himself the brutal fact 
that she had ceased years before to be to him as neces- 
sary as his business. She had left him one child. Two 
others had died in infancy, and he had mourned for 
them and sympathized with her; but he never knew for 
years, and until too late, how stricken she had been over 
their loss. The child she had left him had in some way 
taken hold on him and had held it even against himself. 
She had so much of himself in her that he himself could 
see the resemblance; his natural kindness, his good im- 
pulses, his wilfulness, his resolution and ambition to 
lead and to succeed in all he undertook. 

Even from the earliest days when she was left to him, 
Mr. Leigh was made aware by Eleanor that he had 
something out of the ordinary to deal with. The 
arrangement by which, on the death of her mother, 
she was taken by her half-aunt, Mrs. Argand, to be 
cared for, “ because the poor child needed a mother to 
look after her,” fell through promptly when the little 
thing who had rebelled at the plan appeared, dusty and 
dishevelled but triumphant, in her father’s home that 
first evening, as he was preparing, after leaving his 
office, to go and see her. It was doubtless an auspicious 
moment for the little rebel; for her father was at the 
instant steeped in grief and loneliness and self-reproach. 
He had worked like fury all day to try to forget his 
loss; but his return home to his empty house had torn 
open his wounds afresh, and the echoing of his solitary 
footfall on the stair and in the vacant rooms had almost 
117 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

driven him to despair. Every spot — every turn was a 
red-hot brand on the fresh wound. No man had loved 
his wife more; but he awoke now when too late to the 
torturing fact that he had left her much alone. He had 
worked for her, leaving the enjoyment to the future; 
and she had died before the future came, in that deso- 
late present which was to be linked forever to the irre- 
trievable past. It was at this moment that he heard a 
familiar step outside his door. His heart almost stopped 
to listen. It could not be Eleanor — she was safe at her 
Aunt’s, blocks away, awaiting the fulfilment of his 
promise to come to see her — and it was now dark. 
Could it be a delusion ? His over-wrought brain might 
have fancied it. Next second the door burst open, and 
in rushed Eleanor with a cry — “Oh! Papa!” 

“Why, Nelly! How did you come!” 

“Slipped out and ran away! You did not come and 
I could not stay.” 

When the emotion of the first greeting was over, Mr. 
Leigh, under the strong sense of what he deemed his 
duty to the child, and also to the dear dead — which had 
led him at first to make the sacrifice of yielding to his 
sister-in-law’s urgency, began to explain to the little girl 
the impropriety of her action, and the importance of 
her returning to her Aunt, when she had been so kind. 
But he found it a difficult task. Mr. Leigh believed in 
discipline. He had been brought up in a rigid school, 
and he knew it made for character; but it was uphill 
work with the little girl’s arms clasped about his neck 
and her hot, tear-streaked little face pressed close to his 
118 


ELEANOR LEIGH 

as she pleaded and met his arguments with a prompt- 
ness and an aptness which astonished him. More- 
over, she had a strong advocate in his own heart, and 
from the first moment when she had burst in on his 
heart-breaking loneliness he had felt that he could not 
let her go again if she were unhappy. 

“She would not go back,” she asserted defiantly. 
“She hated her Aunt, anyhow — she was a hateful old 
woman who scolded her servants; and sent her up-stairs 
to her supper.” 

When to this her father promptly replied that she 
must go back, and he would take her, she as promptly 
changed her note. 

“Very well, she would go back; he need not come 
with her; but she would die.” 

“Oh, no, you will not die. You will soon grow very 
fond of her.” 

“Then I shall grow very worldly, like her,” said Miss 
Precocity. 

“What makes you think that?” 

“ Because she is a worldly old woman — and you said 
so yourself.” 

“I said so! When?” demanded her father, with a 
guilty feeling of vague recollection. 

“To Mamma once — when Mamma said something 
against her husband, you said that, and Mamma said 
you ought not to say that about her sister — and you said 
she was only her half-sister, anyhow, and not a bit like 
her — and now you want to send me back to her as if I 
were only your half-child.” 

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JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

The father smiled sadly enough as he drew the anxious 
little face close to his own. 

“Oh! no — You are all mine, and my all. I only want 
to do what is right.” 

“Mamma wants me to stay with you — so it must be 
right.” 

The present tense used by the child struck the father 
to the heart. 

“What makes you think that?” he asked with a sigh. 
The little girl was quick to catch at the new hope. 

“She told me so the day before she died, when I was 
in the room with her; she said you would be lonely, and 
I must be a comfort to you.” 

Mr. Leigh gave a gasp that was almost a groan, and 
the child flung her arms about his neck. 

“And I sha’n’t leave you, my all-Papa, unless you 
drive me; I promised Mamma I would stay and take 
care of you, and I will. And you won’t make me — will 
you? For I am your all-daughter — You won’t, will 
you?” 

“No, d d if I do!” said the father, catching her to 

his heart, and trying to smother the oath as it burst 
from his lips. 

As soon as she had quieted down, he went to her 
Aunt’s to make the necessary explanation. He found it 
not the easiest task, for the good lady had her own ideas 
and had formed her plans, and the change was a blow 
to her amour propre. It was, in fact, the beginning of the 
breach between Mr. Leigh and his sister-in-law which 
led eventually to the antagonism between them. 

120 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


“You are going to spoil that child to death !” ex- 
claimed the affronted lady. This Mr. Leigh denied, 
though in his heart he thought it possible. It was not a 
pleasant interview, for Mrs. Argand was deeply of- 
fended. But Mr. Leigh felt that it was well worth the 
cost when, on his return home, he was greeted by a cry 
of joy from the top of the stair where the little girl sat 
in her dressing gown awaiting him. And when with a 
cry of joy she came rushing down, Cinderella-like, drop- 
ping her slipper in her excitement, and flung herself 
into his arms, he knew that life had begun for him anew. 

Mr. Leigh was quite aware of the truth of Mrs. Ar- 
gand’s prophecy; but he enjoyed the spoiling of his 
daughter, which she had foretold, and he enjoyed 
equally the small tyrannies which the child exercised 
over him, and also the development of her mind as the 
budding years passed. 

“Papa,” she said one day, when she had asked him 
to take her somewhere, and he had pleaded, “ business,” 
“why do you go to the office so much?” 

“I have to work to make money for my daughter,” 
said her father, stating the first reason that suggested 
itself. 

“Are you not rich enough now?” 

“Well, I don’t know that I am, with a young lady 
growing up on my hands,” said her father smiling. 

“Am I very expensive?” she asked with a sudden 
little expression of gravity coming over her face. 

“No, that you are not, my dear — and if you were, 
there is no pleasure on earth to me like giving it to you. 

121 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

That is one of my chief reasons for working so steadily, 
though there are others.” 

“I have plenty of money,” said Eleanor. 

“Then you are happier than most people, who don’t 
know when they have plenty.” 

“Yes — you see, all I have to do when I want anything 
is to go into a store and ask for it, and tell them I am 
your daughter, and they let me have it at once.” 

“Oh ho!” said her father, laughing, “so that is the 
way you buy things, is it ? No wonder you have plenty. 
Well, you’d better come to me and ask for what you 
want.” 

“I think the other is the easier way, and as you say 
you like to give it to me, I don’t see that it makes any 
difference.” 

Mr. Leigh decided that he had better explain the 
difference. 

“I hate rich people,” said Eleanor suddenly. “They 
are so vulgar.” 

“For example?” enquired her father looking with 
some amusement at the girl whose face had suddenly 
taken on an expression of severe priggishness. 

“Oh! Aunt Sophia and Milly McSheen. They are 
always talking about their money.” 

Mr. Leigh’s eyes were twinkling. 

“You must not talk that way about your Aunt Sophia 
— she is very fond of you.” 

“She is always nagging at me — correcting me.” 

“She wants you to grow up to be a fine woman.” 

“Like her?” said Miss Eleanor pertly. 

122 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


Mr. Leigh felt that it was wise to check this line of 
criticism, and he now spoke seriously. 

“You must not be so critical of your Aunt. She is 
really very fond of you — and she was your mother** 
half-sister. You must respect her and love her.” 

“I love her, but I don’t like her. She and Milly Mc- 
Sheen are just alike — always boasting of what they 
have, and do, and running down what others have, and 
do.” 

“Oh, well, it takes a great many people to make a 
world,” said Mr. Leigh indulgently. Eleanor felt a 
want of sympathy and made another bid for it. 

“Milly McSheen says that her father is going to be 
the richest man in this town.” 

“Ah! who is talking about money now?” said Mr. 
Leigh, laughing. 

“I am not — I am merely saying what she said.” 

“You must not tell the silly things your friends say.” 

“No — only to you — I thought you said I must tell you 
everything. But, of course, if you don’t wish me to — 
I won’t.” 

Mr. Leigh laughed and took her on his knee. He 
was not quite sure whether she was serious or was only 
laughing at him, but, as he began to explain, she burst 
into a peal of merriment over her victory. 

In appearance she was like her mother, only he 
thought her fairer — as fair as he had thought her mother 
in the days of his first devotion ; and her deeper eyes and 
firmer features were an added beauty; the well-rounded 
chin was his own. Her eyes, deep with unfathomable 
123 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

depths, and mouth, firm even with its delicate beauty, 
had come from some ancestor or ancestress who, in 
some generation past, had faced life in its most exacting 
form with undaunted resolution and, haply, had faced 
death with equal calm for some belief that now would 
scarcely have given an hour’s questioning. So, when 
she grew each year, developing new powers and charm 
and constancy, he began to find a new interest in life, 
and to make her more his companion and confidante 
than he had ever made her mother. He left his business 
oftener to see her than he had left it to see her mother; 
he took her oftener with him on his trips, and took more 
trips, that he might have her company. She sat at the 
head of his table, and filled her place with an ability 
that was at once his astonishment and his pride. 

At one time, as she changed from a mere child to a 
young girl, he had thought of marrying again, rather 
with a view to giving her a guide and counsellor than 
for any other purpose. Her storminess, however, at the 
mere suggestion, and much more, her real grief, had led 
him to defer the plan from time to time, until now she 
was a young lady, and he could see for himself that she 
needed neither chaperon nor counsellor. He sometimes 
smiled to think what the consequences would have been 
had he taken to wife the soft, kindly, rather common- 
place lady whom he had once thought of as his daugh- 
ter’s guardian. A domestic, fowl in the clutches of a 
young eagle would have had an easier time. 

One phase alone in her development had puzzled and 
baffled him. She had gone off one spring to a country 
124 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


neighborhood in another State, where she had some old 
relatives on her mother’s side. Mr. Leigh had been called 
to Europe on business, and she had remained there until 
well into the summer. When she returned she was not 
the same. Some change had taken place in her. She 
had gone away a rollicking, gay, pleasure-loving, and 
rather selfish young girl — he was obliged to admit that 
she was both wilful and self-indulgent. Even his affec- 
tion for her could not blind his eyes to this, and at times 
it had given him much concern, for at times there was a 
clash in which, if he came off victor, he felt it was at a 
perilous price — that, possibly, of a strain on her obedi- 
ence. She returned a full-grown woman, thoughtful 
and self-sacrificing and with an aim — he was glad it 
was not a mission — and as her aim was to be useful, 
and she began with him, he accepted it with content- 
ment. She talked freely of her visit; spoke warmly, and 
indeed, enthusiastically, of those she had met there. 
Among these were a young country preacher and a 
friend of his, a young Jew. But, though she spoke of 
both with respect, the praise she accorded them was so 
equal that he dismissed from his mind the possibility 
that she could have been seriously taken with either of 
them. Possibly, the Jew was the one she was most 
enthusiastic over, but she spoke of him too openly to 
cause her father disquietude. Besides, he was a Jew, 
The preacher she plainly respected most highly, yet 
her account of his appearance was too humorous to 
admit a serious feeling for him, even though she had 
gotten him called to be one of Dr. Capon’s assistants. 
125 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

What had happened was that the girl, who had only 
“lain in the lilies and fed on the roses of life,” had sud- 
denly been dropped in an out-of-the-way corner in a 
country neighborhood in an old State, where there were 
neither lilies nor roses of the metaphorical kind, though 
a sufficiency of the real and natural kind, with which 
nature in compensatory mood atones to those who have 
of the metaphorical sort but thistles and brambles and 
flinty soil. 

When she first landed there, after the very first ex- 
citement of being thrown into a wholly new situation, 
among strangers whom, though her relatives, she had 
always regarded much as she had regarded geographical 
places in distant lands, was over, she found herself, as 
it were, at a loss for occupation. Everything was so 
quiet and calm. She felt lost and somewhat bored. But 
after a little time she found occupation in small things, 
as on looking closely she discovered beauties in Nature 
which her first glance had failed to catch. The people 
appeared so novel, so simple, so wholly different from all 
whom she had known; the excitements and amusements 
and interests of her life in the city, or at summer water' 
ing-places, or in travelling, were not only unknown to 
them — as unknown as if they were in another planet, but 
were matters of absolute indifference. Their interest 
was in their neighbors, in the small happenings about 
them; and occurrences an hundred miles away were as 
distant to them as though they had taken place in 
another era. Among the few notabilities in this rural 
community was a young clergyman whom she always 
126 


ELEANOR LEIGH 

heard spoken of with respect — as much respect, indeed, 
as if he had been a bishop. What “Mr. Marvel 
thought” and what he said was referred to, or was 
quoted as something to be considered — so much so that 
she had insensibly formed a picture in her own mind of 
a quite remarkable looking and impressive person. 
When, at last, she met John Marvel, what was her 
amusement to discover, in place of her young Antinous, 
a stout, strapping young fellow, with rather bristly hair, 
very near-sighted and awkward, and exceedingly shy, 
a person as far from a man of the worlu as a stout, 
country-bred cart-horse would be from a sleek trick- 
pony. His timidity in her presence caused her endless 
amusement, and for lack of some better diversion and 
partly to scandalize her staid kinswomen, she set her- 
self to tease him in every way that her fertile brain 
could devise. 

Visiting the young clergyman at the time was a friend 
who came much nearer being in appearance what 
Eleanor had imagined John Marvel to be: a dark, 
slender young man with a classical face, but that its 
lines were stronger and more deeply graven, and un- 
forgettable eyes. He had just come to visit Mr. Marvel 
and to get a needed rest, John Marvel said. He had 
been a worker among the poor, and his views were so 
different from any that Eleanor Leigh had ever heard 
as to appear almost shocking. He was an educated 
man, yet he had lived and worked as an artisan. He 
was a gentleman, yet he denounced vehemently the 
conditions which produced the upper class. But an 
127 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

even greater surprise awaited her when he announced 
that he was a Jew. 

When John Marvel brought his friend to see Miss 
Eleanor Leigh, the first impression that she received 
was one of pleasure. He was so striking and unusual 
looking — with deep, burning eyes under dark brows. 
Then she was not sure that she liked him, she even 
thought she was sensible of a sort of repulsion. She 
had a feeling as if he were weighing her in his mind 
and, not approving of her, treated her at times with in- 
difference, times with a certain disdain. She was 
conscious of an antagonism as Wolff ert showed scorn 
of conditions and things which she had been brought 
up to believe almost as much a necessary part of life 
as air and light. She promptly began to argue with 
him, but when she found that he usually had the best 
of the argument, she became more careful how she 
opened herself to his attack. He aroused in her the 
feeling of opposition. His scorn of the money-making 
spirit of the day led her to defend what she secretly 
held in contempt. And once when he had been in- 
veighing against commercialism that set up Gods of 
Brass to worship, and declared that it was the old 
story of Nebuchadnezzar over again — and was the fore- 
runner to brotherhood with the beasts of the field, she 
wheeled on him, declaring that it was “only people who 
had no power to make money who held such views.” 

“Do you think that I could not make money if I 
wished to do so ?” said Wolff ert quietly, with an amused 
light in his eyes as they rested on her with an expression 
128 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


which was certainly not hostile; for her eagerness had 
brought warm blood to her cheeks and her eyes were 
sparkling with the glow of contention. 

“Yes, if you were able you would be as rich as a 
Jew.” 

A yet more amused look came into Wolff ert’s eyes. 

“Are all Jews rich?” he asked. 

“Yes — all who are capable — you know they are.” 

“ No, for I am a Jew and I am not rich,” said Wolffert. 

“What! You! — You a — Oh, I beg your pardon! 
I — ”she blushed deeply. 

“Pray don’t apologize — don’t imagine that I am 
offended. Would you be offended if I charged you with 
coming from a race of poets and philosophers and sci- 
entists — of a race that had given the world its literature 
and its religion?” 

She burst out laughing. 

“No; but I was such a fool — pray forgive me.” She 
held out her hand and Wolffert took it and pressed it 
Jirmly — and this was the beginning of their friendship. 

Wolffert walked home slowly that evening, that is, 
across the fields to the little farmhouse where John 
Marvel lived. He had food for thought. 

When Eleanor Leigh saw John Marvel a few days 
later she told him of her conversation and the speech 
she had made to his friend. “You know,” said John, 
“ that he is rich or could be, if he chose to go home. His 
father is very rich.” 

“ He is a new Jew to me,” said Eleanor Leigh ; “ he 
is quite different from the typical Jew.” 

129 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I wonder if there is a typical Jew,” questioned John 
to himself, and this set Eleanor wondering too. 

But Eleanor Leigh found other causes for wonder in 
Wolffert besides the salient fact of his race which she had 
mentioned to her cousins, and they forced upon her the 
consciousness that she would have to readjust her ideas 
of many things as she had been compelled to do in re- 
gard to the appearance and aims of this singular people. 
Her idea of the Israelites had always been curiously 
connoted with hooked noses, foreign speech of a far 
from refined type, and a persistent pursuit of shekels by 
ways generally devious and largely devoted to shops 
containing articles more or less discarded by other 
people. Here she found a cultivated gentleman with 
features, if not wholly classical, at least more regular 
and refined than those of most young men of her 
acquaintance; speech so cultivated as to be quite dis- 
tinguished, and an air and manner so easy and gracious 
as to suggest to her complete knowledge of the great 
world. No matter what subject was discussed between 
them, he knew about it more than any one else, and 
always threw light on it which gave it a new interest for 
her. He had a knowledge of the Literature and Art, 
not only of the ancients, but of most modern nations, 
and he talked to her of things of which she had never 
so much as heard. He had not only travelled exten- 
sively in Europe, but had travelled in a way to give him 
an intimate knowledge not merely of the countries, but 
of the people and customs of the countries which no 
one she had ever met possessed. He had crossed in the 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


steerage of ocean-liners more than once and had stoked 
across both to England and the Mediterranean. 

“But what made you do it?” she asked. “Did not 
you find it terrible?” 

“Yes — pretty bad.” Wolffert was at the moment 
showing her how tea was made in certain provinces 
along the Caspian Sea which he had visited not long 
before. “About as bad as it could be.” 

“Then what made you do it ?” 

“Well, I saved money by it, too.” 

What the other reason was she did not press him to 
give. She only thought, “That is the Jew of it.” But 
after she had seen more of him she discovered that the 
other reason was that he might learn by personal ex- 
perience what the condition was in the emigrant ships 
and the holes where the stokers lived deep down amid 
the coal-bunkers and the roaring furnaces, and further, 
.that he might know the people themselves. Incidentally, 
he had learned there and elsewhere Italian and Russian, 
with the strange Hebraic faculty of absorbing whatever 
he came in touch with, but he thought no more of know- 
ing that than of knowing Yiddish. 

It was this study of conditions that finally gave her 
the key to his design in life, for it developed as their 
acquaintance grew that this clear-headed, cultivated, 
thoughtful man held strange views as to the ordinary 
things of life, the things which she had always accepted 
as as fundamental and unchangeable as the solid earth 
or the vaguely comprehended but wholly accepted revo- 
lution of the spheres. In fact, he held that the condi- 
131 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

tions of modern life, the relations of people in mass; 
which she had somehow always considered as almost 
perfect and, indeed, divinely established, were absolutely 
outworn and fundamentally unrighteous and unjust. 
She at first did not take him seriously. She could not. 
To find a pleasant and, indeed, rather eloquent-spoken 
young man denounce as wicked and vile usurpation the 
establishment of competitive enterprises, and the accu- 
mulation of capital by captains of industry, appeared 
to her almost impious. Yet, there he sat with burning 
eyes and thrilling voice denouncing the very things she 
had always considered most commendable. “Why, 
that is Socialism, isn't it ?” she asked, feeling that if she 
could convict him of this somewhat vaguely comprehend- 
ed term she would prove her old foundations unshaken. 

Wolffert smiled. He was very good-looking when he 
smiled. “No, not exactly — if it is, it is only an elemen- 
tary and individual kind of Socialism; but it is Social- 
ism so far as it is based on a profound desire to recon- 
struct society and to place it on a natural and equitable 
social foundation where every one shall have a chance 
to work and to reap the fruit of such work.” 

“What is Socialism?” she demanded suddenly. 

“It is not what you mean by the term,” he laughed. 
“ It is not taking the property of those who have worked 
for it and giving to those who neither have worked nor 
will work — that is what you have in mind.” 

“Precisely,” she nodded. 

“It is — at least, the Socialism I mean — the applica- 
tion of the same method of general order by the people 
132 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


at large to labor and the product of labor: property — that 
is now employed in Government. The reconstruction 
of the present methods so that all should participate 
both in the labor, and in the product.” He went on to 
picture glowingly the consequences of this Utopian 
scheme when all men should work and all should reap. 
But though he made it appear easy enough to him, 
Eleanor Leigh’s practical little head saw the difficulties 
and the flaws much more readily than the perfect result 
which he appeared to find so certain. 

“You cannot reconstruct human nature,” she pro- 
tested, “and when you shall have gotten your system 
thoroughly under way, those who have gotten in posi- 
tions of power will use their advantage for their own 
benefit, and then you will still have to begin all over 
again.” But Wolffert was certain of the result and 
pointed out the work of his friend John Marvel as a 
proof of his theory. 

While, at first, the broad-shouldered young clergyman 
fled from her presence with a precipitation which was 
laughable, it was not long before he appeared to have 
steeled himself sufficiently against her shafts of good- 
natured persiflage to be able to tolerate her presence, 
and before a great while had passed, her friends began 
to tease her on the fact that wherever she went Mr. 
Marvel was pretty sure to appear. One of her old 
cousins, half-rallyingly and half-warningly, cautioned 
her against going too far with the young man, saying, 
“ Mr. Marvel, my dear, is too good a man for you to 
amuse yourself with, and then fling away. What is sim- 
133 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ply the diversion of an hour for you, may become a matter 
of real gravity with him. He is already deeply inter- 
ested in you and unless you are interested in him ” 

“Why, I am interested in him,” declared the girl, 
laughing. “Why, he tells me of all the old sick women 
and cats in the parish and I have an engagement to go 
around with him and see some old women to-morrow. 
You ought to see some that we went to visit the other 
day!” 

“ I know, my dear, but you must not make fun of his 
work. He is happy in it and is accomplishing a great 

deal of good, and if you should get him dissatisfied ” 

“Oh, no, indeed; I gave him some money last week 
for a poor family to get some clothes so that they could 
come to church. They were named Banyan. They live 
near the mines. The whole family were to be christened 
next Sunday, and what do you suppose they did ? As 
soon as they got the clothes they went last Sunday to a 
big baptizing and were all immersed! I was teasing 
him about that when you heard me laughing at him.” 

“The wretches!” exclaimed her cousin. “To think 
of their deceiving him so!” 

“I know,” said the girl. “But I think he minded 
the deception much more than the other. Though I 
charged him with being disappointed at not getting them 
into his fold, really, I don’t think he minded it a bit. 
At least, he said he would much rather they had gone 
where they would be happy.” 

“ Now, Mr. Marvel’s friend, Mr. Wolffert, is a different 
matter. He appears quite able to take care of himself.” 
134 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


" Quite,” said Miss Leigh dryly. 

“ But, my dear,” said her cousin, lowering her voice, 
"they say he is a Jew.” 

"He is,” said Eleanor. 

"You know it?” 

"Yes, he told me so himself.” 

"Told you himself! Why, I thought — ! How did 
he come to tell you ? ” 

"Why, I don’t know. We were talking and I said 
something foolish about the Jews — about some one 
being ‘as rich and stingy as a Jew/ and he smiled and 
said, ‘Are all Jews rich — and stingy?’ And I said, ‘If 
thej have a chance,’ and he said, ‘Not always. I am 
a Jew and I am not rich.’ Well, I thought he was fool- 
ing, just teasing me — so I went on, and do you know 
he is not only a Jew, but Mr. Marvel says he is rich, 
only he does not claim his money because he is a Social- 
ist. Mr. Marvel says he could go home to-morrow and 
his father would take him and lavish money on him; 
but he works — works all the time among the poor.” 

“ Well, I must say I always liked him,” said her cousin. 

"But he isn’t such good fun to tease as Mr. Marvel 
— he is too intense. Mr. Marvel does get so red and 
unhappy-looking when he is teased.” 

"Well, you have no right to tease him. He is a 
clergyman and should be treated with respect. You 
wouldn’t dare to tease your rector in town — the great 
Dr. — What is his name ? ” 

"Oh! wouldn’t I? Dr. Bartholomew Capon. Why, 
he is one of the greatest beaux in town. He’s always 
135 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

running around to see some girl — ogling them with his 
big blue eyes.” 

“ Eleanor!” exclaimed her cousin reprovingly. 

“Why, he’d marry any one of the Canter girls who 
would have him, or Aunt Sophia, or ” 

“Eleanor, don’t be profane.” 

The old lady looked so shocked fhat the girl ran 
over and kissed her, with a laugh. 

“Why, I’ve told him so.” 

“Told him? You haven’t!” 

“Yes, I have. I told him so when he tried to marry 
me. Then he tried Aunt Sophia.” 

“What! Eleanor, you are incorrigible. You really 
are. But do tell me about it. Did he really court you ? 
Why, he’s old enough to be your ” 

“Grandfather,” interrupted the girl. “That’s what 
I told him, substantially.” 

“Served him right, too. But he must be a fine 
preacher from what my old friend, Pansy Tipps, once 
wrote me. Did you ever meet Pansy Tipps ? She and 
her sister live in your city. They went there years ago 
to press a claim they had to a large fortune left them by 
their father, Colonel Tipps, who used to be a very rich 
man, but left his affairs somewhat complicated, I gather 
from what Pansy writes me, or did write, for she does 
not write very often now. I wish you’d go and see them 
when you go back.” 

“I will,” said Eleanor. “Where do they live?” 

“At a Mrs. Kale’s — she keeps a boarding-house — 
I don’t know the exact location, and mislaid Pansy’s 
136 


ELEANOR LEIGH 


letter a year or more ago, but you will have no difficulty 
in finding it. It must be in the fashionable quarter and 
I should think any one could tell you where she lives.” 
“I will find her,” said Eleanor, laughing. 


xn 

JOHN MARVEL 


When, a little later, a scourge of diphtheria broke out 
in a little mining camp not far from the home of Miss 
Leigh’s relatives and she learned that John Marvel 
spent all his time nursing the sick and relieving their 
necessities as far as possible, she awakened to a realiza- 
tion of the truth of what her cousin had said, that under 
his awkward exterior lay a mine of true gold. 

Day by day reports came of the spread of the deadly 
pestilence, making inroads in every family, baffling the 
skill and outstripping the utmost efforts of the local 
physician; day by day, the rumor came that wherever 
illness appeared there was John Marvel. 

One afternoon Miss Leigh, who had ridden over in 
the direction of the mining village to try and get some 
information about the young clergyman, who, a rumor 
said, had been stricken himself the day before, came on 
him suddenly in a by-path among the hills. At sight of 
her he stopped and held up his hand in warning, and 
at the warning she reined in her horse. 

“ Don’t come nearer,” he called to her. 

“ What is the matter ?” she asked. “ How are you ?” 
For even at that distance — perhaps, some fifty paces — 
she could see that he looked wretchedly worn and wan. 

“Oh, I’m doing very well,” he replied. “How are 
you? You must not come this way 1 Turn back 1” 

138 


JOHN MARVEL 


She began to rein her horse around and then, on a 
sudden, as his arm fell to his side, and, stepping a little 
out of the path, he leant against a tree, the whole situa- 
tion struck her. Wheeling her horse back, she rode 
straight up to him though he stiffened up and waved 
her back. 

“You are ill,” she said. 

“Oh, no. I am not ill, I am only a bit tired; that is 
all. You must not come this way — go back!” 

“But why?” she persisted, sitting now close above 
him. 

“ Because — because — there is sickness here. A fam- 
ily there is down.” He nodded back toward the 
curve around which he had just come. “The Banyan 
family are all ill, and I am just going for help.” 

“I will go — I, at least, can do that. What help? 
What do you want?” 

She had tightened the rein on her horse and turned 
his head back. 

“Everything. The mother and three children are 
all down; the father di^d a few days ago. Send the 
doctor and anything that you can find — food — clothing 
—medicine — som to nurse them — if you can find 

her. It is the omy chance.” 

“I will.” She hesitated a moment and looked down 
at him, as if about to speak, but he waved her off. “ Go, 
you must not stay longer.” 

He had moved around so that the wind, instead of 
blowing from him toward her, blew from the other side 
of her. 


139 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

A moment later Eleanor Leigh was galloping for life 
down the steep bridle-path. It was a breakneck gait, 
and the path was rough enough to be perilous, but she 
did not heed it. It was the first time in all her life that 
she had been conscious that she could be of real use. 
She felt that she was galloping in a new world. From 
house to house she rode, but though all were sympa- 
thetic, there was no one to go. Those who might have 
gone, were elsewhere — or were dead. The doctor was 
away from home attending at other bedsides and, by 
the account given, had been working night and day 
until he could scarcely stand. Riding to the nearest 
telegraph station, the girl sent a despatch to a doctor 
whom she knew in the city where she lived, begging him 
to come or to send some one on the first train and say- 
ing that he would be met and that she would meet all 
his expenses. Then she sat down and wrote a note to 
her cousin. And two hours later, just as the dusk was 
falling, she rode up to the door of a country cabin back 
among the hills. As she softly pushed open the door, 
with her arm full of bundles, a *Vm rose from the side 
of a bed and stood before her in tne Li«k of the room. 

“My God! you must not come in .^re. Why have 
you come here?” 

“To help you.” said the girl. 

“But you must not come in. Go out. You must,” 
said John Marvel. 

“ No, I have come to stay. I could not live if I did not 
stay now.” She pushed her way in. “Here are some 
things I have brought. I have telegraphed for a doctor.” 

140 



“But you must not come in.” 

































































































a 



















A 

















JOHN MARVEL 


It was long before she could satisfy John Marvel, but 
she staid, and all that night she worked with him over 
the sick and the dying. All that night they two strove 
to hold Death at bay, across those wretched beds. 
Once, indeed, he had struck past their guard and 
snatched a life; but they had driven him back and saved 
the others. Ere morning came one of the children had 
passed away; but the mother and the other children 
survived; and Eleanor Leigh knew that John Marvel, 
now on his knees, now leaning over the bed administer- 
ing stimulants, had saved them. 

As Eleanor Leigh stepped out into the morning light, 
she looked on a new earth, as fair as if it had just been 
created, and it was a new Eleanor Leigh who gazed 
upon it. The tinsel of frivolity had shrivelled and 
perished in the fire of that night. Sham had laid bare 
its shallow face and fled away Life had taken on 
reality. She had seen a man, and thenceforth only a 
man could command her. 

The physician came duly, sent up by the one she had 
telegraphed to; rode over to the Banyan house, and 
later to the village, where he pronounced the disease 
diphtheria and the cause probably defective drainage 
and consequent impregnation of the water supply; 
wrote a prescription; commended the country doctor^ 
returned home, and duly charged nearly half as much 
as the country doctor got in a year, which Miss Leigh 
duly paid with thoughts of John Marvel. This was 
what made the change in the girl which her father had 
noted. 


141 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

No novelist can give all of a hero’s or a heroine’s life. 
He must take sonce especial phase and develop his 
characters along that line, otherwise he would soon 
overload his boat and swamp his reader’s patience. 
He is happy who having selected his path of action does 
not wear out the reader in asking him to follow even 
this one line. Thus, it is possible to give only a part 
of Miss Eleanor Leigh’s relation to life, and naturally 
the part selected is that which had also its relation to 
John Marvel. 

If it be supposed by any one that Miss Eleanor Leigh 
devoted her entire time and thought to working among 
the poor he is greatly mistaken. John Marvel and Leo 
Wolff ert did this: but Miss Leigh was far from living 
the consecrated life. She only made it a part of her 
life, that is all, and possibly this was the best for her to 
do. The glimpse which she got at the death-bed in 
the Banyan cottage that night when she went to help 
John Marvel fight death, tore the veil from her eyes 
and gave her a revelation of a life of which she had never 
dreamed till then, though it lay all about her in its 
tragic nakedness — but while it gave her pause and 
inspired her with a sincere wish to help the poor — or, 
possibly, to help John Marvel and Leo Wolffert, it 
did not change her nature or make her a missionary. 
An impulse, whatever its ultimate action, does not revo- 
lutionize. She still retained the love of pleasure natural 
to all young creatures. The young tree shoots up by 
nature into the sun. She still took part in the gay life 
about her, and, if possible, found a greater zest in it for 
142 


JOHN MARVEL 


the consciousness that she had widened her horizon and 
discovered more interests outside of the glittering little 
brazen circle in which her orbit had been hitherto con- 
fined. She had immediately on returning home inter- 
ested herself to secure for John Marvel an invitation 
from Dr. Capon, her rector, to become one of his 
assistants and take charge of an outlying chapel which 
he had built in the poorest district of the town, moved 
thereto by a commendable feeling that the poor should 
have the gospel preached to them and that his church 
should not allow all the honors to go to other churches, 
particularly that of Rome. Dr. Capon prided himself 
and was highly esteemed by his fellows — that is, the 
upper officials, clergy, and laity alike — on his ability 
to obtain from his people the funds needed to extend 
what was known as “ the work of the Parish,” by which 
was signified mainly the construction of buildings, 
additions thereto, embellishments thereof, and stated 
services therein, and, incidentally, work among the poor 
for whom the buildings were supposed to have been 
planned. The buildings having all been erected and 
paid for and due report and laudation thereof having 
been made, it was found rather more difficult to fill them 
than had been previously anticipated. And it was set 
down somewhat to the perversity of the poor that they 
refused the general invitation extended them to come 
and be labelled and patronized with words and smiles 
quite as unctuous as benignant. 

Dr. Capon had not the reputation of getting on quite 
comfortably with his assistants. The exactions of his 
143 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

type of success had made him a business man. As his 
power of organization increased, spirituality dwindled. 
He dealt more with the rich and less with the poor. He 
had the reputation of being somewhat exacting in his 
demands on them, and of having a somewhat over- 
weening sense of his own importance and authority. 
Bright young men either declined altogether his sugges- 
tions of the whiteness of the harvest in the purlieus of 
the city, or, having been led into accepting positions 
under him, soon left him for some country parish or less 
imposing curacy — an exotic word which the Doctor 
himself had had something to do with importing from 
over seas. It thus happened that his chapel recently 
built for the poor with funds elicited from Dr. Capon’s 
wealthy parishioners was vacant when Miss Eleanor 
Leigh consulted the Reverend Doctor as to a good 
church for a peculiarly good young clergyman, and the 
Doctor being at that time in his second mourning and 
likewise in that state of receptivity incident to clerical 
widowers of a year and a half’s standing, yielded readily 
to his fair parishioner’s solicitations, and the position 
was tendered to John Marvel and after some hesitation 
was accepted — his chief motive being that his old 
friend Wolffert was there doing a work in which he had 
greatly interested him. If the fact that Miss Eleanor 
Leigh also lived in that city influenced him, it would 
simply prove that John Marvel, like the rest of Humanity 
was only mortal. The tender was made without the 
usual preliminary examination of the young man by the 
Doctor, so impressed had he been by the young girl’s 
144 


JOHN MARVEL 


enthusiastic accounts of John Marvel's work and in- 
fluence among the poor. Thus it was, that when 
John Marvel finally presented himself, the Doctor was 
more than surprised at his appearance — he was, indeed, 
almost shocked. 

The Doctor was not only fond of his own appearance 
— which was certainly that of a gentleman and a very 
well-fed and clerical looking one as well — but he took 
especial pride in having his assistants also good- 
looking and clerical. He loved to march in processional 
and recessional at the end of a stately procession with 
two or three fine-looking young priests marching before 
him. It had a solemnizing effect — it made the church 
appear something important. It linked him with the 
historic and Apostolic Church of the ages. With the 
swelling organ pouring forth its strains to soar and die 
among the groined arches above him, he sometimes felt 
as he glanced along the surpliced line before him as if 
he were borne away, and had any one cried to him from 
the side he might almost have been able to heal with his 
blessing. But this short, broad, bow-legged, near- 
sighted man in his shabby, ill-fitting clothes! Why, it 
would never do to have him about him! He would 
mar the whole harmony of the scene. If it had not 
been too late and if the young man had not had such a 
potent influence behind him, the Doctor might have 
suggested some difficulties in the way of carrying 
through the arrangements he had proposed; but though 
Mrs. Argand and her brother-in-law were understood 
to have had some differences over certain business 
145 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

matters, she was very fond of her niece and she was the 
wealthiest woman who came to his church. The Doc- 
tor reflected, therefore, that he need not have the awk- 
ward young man about him much: and when a little 
later it appeared that this gawky young man was 
filling his chapel and neighborhood-house, poor-club 
and night-schools and was sending in reports which 
showed that real work was being done, the Doctor was 
well satisfied to let him remain — so well, indeed, that he 
never invited him to his house socially, but only held 
official relations with him. The report that among John 
Marvel’s chief assistants in the work of organizing his 
poor-clubs and night-school was a Jew Socialist dis- 
turbed the Doctor slightly, but he reflected that when 
one showed such notable results it was in a way necessary 
to employ many curious agencies, and, after all, the as- 
sociation with Jews in secular affairs was a matter ot 
taste. 


146 


XIII 

MR. LEIGH. 


Now, to recur to the period of my arrival in the 
West — the day after Miss Leigh’s return home her 
father paid her the unusual honor of leaving his office 
to take lunch with her. 

Her mind was full of the subject of the paper she 
had read in the press that morning, giving a lurid 
picture of the inconvenience and distress entailed on 
the passengers and scoring the management of the 
company for permitting what was claimed to be “so 
gross a breach of the rights of the public.” 

Ordinarily, she would have passed it over with indiffer- 
ence — a shrug of her white shoulders and a stamp of 
her little foot would have been all the tribute she would 
have paid to it. But of late she had begun to think. 

It had never before been brought so clearly to the 
notice of the girl how her own pleasures — not the natural 
but the created pleasures — of which she was quite as 
fond as other healthy girls of her age and class, were 
almost exclusively at the expense of the class she had 
been accustomed to regard with a general sort of vague 
sympathy as “the Poor.” 

The attack on her father and herself enraged her; 
but, as she cooled down, a feeling deeper than mere 
anger at an injustice took possession of her mind. 

To find that she herself had, in a way, been the occa- 

147 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

sion of the distress to women and children, startled her 
and left in her mind a feeling of uneasiness to which she 
had hitherto been a stranger. 

“Father,” she began, “did you see that dreadful 
article in the Trumpet this morning?” 

Mr. Leigh, without looking up, adopted the natural 
line of special pleading, although he knew perfectly well 
instantly the article to which she referred. 

“What article?” he asked. 

“That story about our having delayed the passenger 
train with women and children on it and then having 
side-tracked them without breakfast, in order to give 
our car the right-of-way.” 

“Oh! yes. I believe I saw that. I see so many 
ridiculous things in the newspapers, I pay no attention 
to them.” 

“But, father, that was a terrible arraignment,” said 
the girl. 

“Of whom?” asked Mr. Leigh, with a little twinkle 
in his eye. 

“Why, of you; of Aunt Sophia, of ” 

“Of me!” 

“Yes, and of me — of everybody connected with the 
road.” 

“ Not of you, my dear,” said Mr. Leigh, with the light 
of affection warming up his rather cold face. “Surely 
no one, even the anarchistic writers of the anarchistic 
press, could imagine anything to say against you.” 

“Yes, of me, too, though not by name, perhaps; but 
I was there and I was in a way the cause of the trouble, 
148 


MR. LEIGH 


because the car was sent after me and Aunt Sophia, and 
I feel terribly guilty about it.” 

“ Guilty of what, my dear ?” smiled her father. “ Of 
simply using your own property in a way satisfactory 
to you?” 

“That is just it, father; that is the point which the 
writer raises. Is it our own property?” 

“ It certainly is, my love. Property that I have paid 
for — my associates and I — and which I control, or did 
control, in conjunction with the other owners, and pro- 
pose to control to suit myself and them so long as we 
have the controlling interest, every socialistic writer, 
speaker and striker to the contrary notwithstanding.” 

“Well,” said the girl, “ that sounds all right. It looks 
as if you ought to be able to do what you like with your 
own; but, do you know, father, I am not sure that it is 
our own. That is just the point — he says ” 

“Oh! nonsense!” said her father lightly. “Don’t 
let this Jew go and fill your clear little head with such 
foolishness as that. Enjoy life while you can. Make 
your mind easy, and get all the use you can out of what 
I have amassed for you. I only hope you may have as 
much pleasure in using it as I have had in providing it.” 

The banker gazed over at his daughter half-quizzi- 
cally, half-seriously, took out a cigar, and began to clip 
the end leisurely. The girl laughed. She knew that 
he had something on his mind. 

“Well, what is it?” she asked smiling. 

He gave a laugh. “Don’t go and imagine that 
because that Jew can write he is any the less a — don’t 
149 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

go and confound him and his work. It is the easiest 
thing in the world to pick flaws — to find the defects in 
any system. The difficult thing is constructive work.” 

She nodded. 

“Did that foreigner go down there while you were 
there ?” 

“The Count?” 

“The No-Count.” 

“ No, of course not. Where did you get such an idea ? ” 

He lighted his cigar with a look of relief, put it in his 
mouth, and sat back in his chair. 

“Don’t let your Aunt Sophia go and make a fool of 
you. She is a very good business woman, but you know 
she is not exactly — Solomon, and she is stark mad about 
titles. When you marry, marry a man.” 

“Mr. Canter, for example?” laughed the girl. “He 
is Aunt Sophia’s second choice. She is always talking 
about his money.” 

“She is always talking about somebody’s money, 
generally her own. But before I’d let that fellow have 
you I’d kill him with my own hand. He’s the worst 
young man I know. Why, if I could tell you half — yes, 
one-tenth, of the things I have heard about him — 
But I can’t tell you — only don’t go and let anybody 
pull the wool over your eyes.” 

“No fear of that,” said the girl. 

“No, I don’t know that there is. I think you’ve 
got a pretty clear little head on your shoulders. But 
when any one gets — gets — why, gets her feelings enlisted 
you can’t just count on her, you know. And with your 
150 


MR. LEIGH 


Aunt Sophy ding-donging at you and flinging her sleek 
Count and her gilded fools at you, it takes a good head 
to resist her.” 

The girl reassured him with a smile of appreciation, 

“I don’t know where she got that from,” continued 
her father. “It must have been that outside strain, 
the Prenders. Your mother did not have a trace of it 
in her. I never saw two half-sisters so different. 
She’d have married anybody on earth she cared for — 
and when she married me I had nothing in the world 
except what my father chose to give me and no very great 
expectations. She had a rich fellow from the South 
tagging after her — a big plantation and lots of slaves 
and all that, and your Aunt Sophy was all for her marry- 
ing him — a good chap, too — a gentleman and all that; 
but she turned him down and took me. And I made 
my own way. What I have I made afterward — by hard 
work till I got a good start, and then it came easy 
enough. The trouble since has been to keep others 
from stealing it from me — and that’s more trouble than 
to make it, I can tell you — what between strikers, gam- 
blers, councilmen, and other knaves, I have a hard 
time to hold on to what I have.” 

“I know you have to work very hard,” said the girl, 
her eyes on him full of affection. “Why, this is the first 
time I’ve had you up to lunch with me in months. I 
felt as much honored as if it had been the King of 
England.” 

“That’s it — I have to stay down there to keep the 
robbers from running off with my pile. That young 
151 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

fellow thought he’d get a little swipe at it, but I taught 
him a thing or two. He’s a plunger. His only idea is 
to make good by doubling up — all right if the market’s 
rising and you can double. But it’s a dangerous game, 
especially if one tries to recoup at the faro table.” 

“Does he play faro?” asked the girl. 

“He plays everything, mainly Merry H — 1. I beg 
your pardon — I didn’t mean to say that before you, but 
he does. And if his father didn’t come to his rescue 
and plank up every time he goes broke, he’d have been 
in the bankrupt court — or jail — and that’s where he’ll 
wind up yet if he don’t look out.” 

“I don’t believe you like him,” laughed the girl. 

“Oh! yes, I do. I like him well enough — he is amus- 
ing rather, he is gay, careless, impudent — he’s the main 
conduit through which I extract money from old 
Prender’s coffers. He never spends anything unless you 
pay him two gold dollars down for one paper one on 
the spot. But I want him to keep away from you, that’s 
all; I suppose I’ve got to lose you some time, but I’ll be 
hanged if I want to give you up to a blackguard — a 

gambler — a rou — a lib — a d d blackguard like 

that.” 

“Well, you will never have that to do,” said the girl; 
“I promise you that.” 

“How is the strike coming on?” asked his daughter. 
“ When I went away it was just threatening, and I read 
in the papers that the negotiations failed and the men 
were ordered out; but I haven’t seen much about it in 
the papers since, though I have looked.” 

152 


MR. LEIGH 


“Oh! Yes — it’s going on, over on the other lines 
across town, in a desultory sort of way,” said her father 
wearily — “the fools! They won’t listen to any reason.” 

“Poor people!” sighed the girl. “Why did they go 
out?” 

“Poor fools!” said Mr. Leigh warmly; “they walked 
out for nothing more than they always have had.” 

“I saw that they had some cause; what was it?” 

“Oh! they’ve always some cause. If they didn’t have 
one they’d make it. Now they are talking of extending 
it over our lines.” 

“Our lines! Why?” 

“Heaven knows. We’ve done everything they de- 
manded — in reason. They talk about a sympathetic 
strike. I hear that a fellow has come on to bring it 
about. Poor fools!” 

The girl gave him a smile of affection as he pushed 
back his chair. And leaning over her as he walked 
toward the door, he gave her a kiss of mingled pride 
and affection. But when he had left the room she sat 
still for some moments, looking straight ahead of her, 
her brow slightly puckered with thought which evidently 
was not wholly pleasant, and then with a sweeping 
motion of her hand she pushed her chair back, and, 
as she arose from the table, said: “I wish I knew what 
is right!” That moment a new resolution entered her 
mind, and, ringing the bell for the servant, she ordered 
her carriage. 


153 


XIV 

MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 

She drove first to Dr. Capon’s church and, going 
around, walked in at the side door near the east end, 
where the robing rooms and the rector’s study were. 
She remembered to have seen on a door somewhere 
there a sign on which was painted in gilded letters the 
fact that the rector’s office hours were from 12 to 1 on 
Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, and this was 
Thursday. The hour, however, was now nearly three, 
and she had called only on a chance of catching him, a 
chance which a stout and gloomy looking verger, who 
appeared from somewhere at her foot-fall, told her at 
first was lost; but when he recognized her, he changed 
his air, grew quite interested, and said he would see if the 
doctor was in. He had been there he knew after lunch, 
but he might have left. He entered and closed the door 
softly behind him, leaving the girl in the gloom, but a 
moment later he returned and showed her in. The 
rector, with a smile of unfeigned pleasure on his face, 
was standing just beside a handsome mahogany writing 
desk, near a window, awaiting her entry, and he greeted 
her with cordiality. 

“Oh! my dear young lady, come in. I was just about 
going off, and I’m glad I happened to have lingered a 
little — getting ready to launch a new year-book.” He 
laid his fingers on a batch of printer’s proof lying on the 
154 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


desk beside a stock bulletin. “I was just thinking 
what a bore it is and lo! it turned into a blessing like 
Balaam's curse. What can I do for you ?” The rector’s 
large blue eyes rested on his comely parishioner with a 
spark in them that was not from any spiritual fire. 

“Well, I don’t know,” said the girl doubtfully. 

“ I see you were at the grand ball, or whatever it was 
last night, and I was so delighted to see that it was for a 
charitable object — and the particular object which I saw.” 

“Yes, it is for Mr. Marvel’s work out among the 
poor,” said Miss Leigh. The rector’s expression 
changed slightly. 

“Oh! yes, that is our work. You know that is our 
chapel. I built it. The ball must have been a great 
success. It was the first knowledge I had that you and 
your dear aunt had returned.” His voice had a tone 
of faint reproach in it. 

“Yes, we returned yesterday. I wish the papers 
would leave me alone,” she added. 

“Ah! my dear young lady, there are many who would 
give a great deal to be chronicled by the public prints as 
you are. The morning and evening star is always men- 
tioned while the little asteroids go unnoticed.” 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” said the girl, “but 
I do wish the papers would let me alone — and my father 
too.” 

“Oh! yes, to be sure. I did not know what you were 
referring to. That was an outrageous attack. So utterly 
unfounded, too, absolutely untrue. Such scurrilous at- 
tacks deserve the reprobation of all thinking men.” 

155 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“The trouble is that the attack was untrue; but the 
story was not unfounded.” 

“What! What do you mean?” The clergyman’s 
face wore a puzzled expression. 

“That our car was hitched on to the train ” 

“And why shouldn’t it be, my dear young lady? 
Doesn’t the road belong to your father ; at least, to your 
family — and those whom they represent?” 

“ I don’t know that it does, and that is one reason why 
I have come to see you.” 

“Of course, it does. You will have to go to a lawyer 
to ascertain the exact status of the title; but I have 
always understood it does. Why, your aunt, Mrs. Ar- 
gand, owns thousands of shares, doesn’t she, and your 
father ? ” A grave suspicion suddenly flitted across his 
mind relative to a rumor he had heard of heavy losses 
by Mr. Leigh and large gains by Mr. Canter, the presi- 
dent of the road, and his associates who, according to 
this rumor, were hostile to Mr. Leigh. 

“ I don’t know, but even if they do, I am not sure that 
that makes them owners. Did you read that article?” 

“No — well, not all of it — I glanced over a part of it, 
enough to see that it was very scurrilous, that’s all. The 
head-lines were simply atrocious. The article itself was 
not so wickedly ’ 

“I should like to do some work among the poor,” 
said the girl irrelevantly. 

“Why, certainly — just what we need — the earnest in- 
terest and assistance of just such persons as yourself, 
of your class; the good, earnest, representatives of the 
156 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


upper class. If we had all like you there would be no 
cry from Macedonia.” 

“Well, how can I go about it?” demanded the girl 
rather cutting in on the rector’s voluble reply. 

“Why, you can teach in the Sunday-school — we have 
a class of nice girls, ladies, you know, a very small one — 
and I could make my superintendent arrange for Miss 
— for the lady who now has them to take another class 
— one of the orphan classes.” 

“ No, I don’t mean that kind of thing. If I taught at all 
I should like to try my hand at the orphan class myself.” 

“Well, that could be easily arranged — ” began the 
rector; but his visitor kept on without heeding him. 

“Only I should want to give them all different hats 
and dresses. I can’t bear to see all those poor little 
things dressed exactly in the same way — sad, drab or 
gray frocks, all cut by the same pattern — and the same 
hats, year in and year out.” 

“ Why, they have new hats every year,” expostulated 
the rector. 

“I mean the same kind of hat. Tall and short; stout 
and thin; slim or pudgy; they all wear the same horrible, 
round hats — I can’t bear to look at them. I vow I’d 
give them all a different hat for Christmas.” 

“Oh! my dear, you can’t do that — you would spoil 
them — and it’s against the regulations. You must re- 
member that these children are orphans!” 

“Being orphans is bad enough,” declared the girl, 
“but those hats are worse. Well, I can’t teach them, 
but I might try some other poor class?” 

157 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

"Why, let me see. The fact is that we haven’t 
any” — he was speaking slowly, casting his mind over his 
field — “very poor people in this church. There used to 
be a number; but they don’t come any more. They 
must have moved out of the neighborhood. I must make 
my assistant look them up.” 

“You have no poor, then?” 

“ Not in this congregation. The fact is this church is 
not very well suited to them. They don’t mix with our 
people. You see our class of people — of course, we are 
doing a great work among the poor, our chapels — we 
have three, one of them, indeed, is a church and larger 
than many independent churches. Another has given 
me some anxiety, but the third is doing quite a remark- 
able work among the working people out in the east end 
— that under my assistant, the young man you interested 
yourself so much in last year — and which your ball 
committee was good enough to consider in selecting 
the object of its benevolence.” 

“Yes, I know — Mr. Marvel. I will go out there.” 

“Oh! my dear, you couldn’t go out there!” 

“Why not? I want to see him.” 

“Why, it is away out on the edge of the city — what 
you might call the jumping-off place — among manufac- 
tories and railroad shops.” 

“Yes, I know. I have been out there.” 

“You have — why, it is away out. It is on — I don’t 
recall the name of the street. It’s away out. I know 
it’s near the street-car terminus that your family own. 
It’s a very pretty chapel indeed. Don’t you think so ? 
158 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


It is natural that you should take an interest in it, as 
your aunt, Mrs. Argand, helped us to build it. She 
gave the largest contribution toward it. I don’t know 
what we should do without charitable women like her.” 

“Yes, I know. And Mr. Marvel is coming on well ?” 

A change came over the face of the rector. “Oh, 
very well — rather an ungainly fellow and very slow, but 
doing a very good work for our parish. I have been 
wanting to get the Bishop to go there all this year as 
there are a number of candidates for me to present; but 
he has been so busy and I have been so busy ” 

“I will go there,” said Miss Leigh, rising. 

“I don’t think you will like it,” urged the rector. 
“It is a very bad part of the town — almost dangerous, 
indeed — filled with working people and others of that 
sort, and I don’t suppose a carriage ever ” 

“I will go in the street cars,” said the girl. 

“The street cars! Yes, you could go that way, but 
why not come here and let me assign you a class ? ” 

“I wish to work among the poor.” 

“The happy poor!” said the rector, smiling. “Why 
not come and help me in my work — who need you so 
much?” His voice had changed suddenly and he at- 
tempted to possess himself of the gloved hand that 
rested on his table, but it was suddenly withdrawn. 

“ I thought we had settled that finally last year,” said 
Miss Leigh firmly. 

“Ah, yes; but the heart is not so easily regulated.” 

“Oh! yes, yours is. Why don’t you try Aunt Sophia 
again ?” 


159 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Try — again? — who?” The rector was manifestly 
somewhat embarrassed. 

“Why, Aunt Sophia — ‘the evening star/” said Miss 
Leigh, laughing. 

“Who says — ? Did she say I had — ah — addressed 
her?” 

“No — I got it from you. Come on now ” 

“Which way are you going? That is just my way. 
May I have the pleasure of driving up with you? I 
must go and see your aunt and welcome her back. 
One moment.” He had shown the young lady out of 
the door. He now turned back and folding up the stock 
bulletin placed it carefully in his pocket. 

As the carriage with its smart team turned into one of 
the broader streets, two young men were standing in a 
window of a large building highly decorated, looking 
idly out on the street. They had just been talking of 
the threatened strike which the newspapers were dis- 
cussing, as to which they held similar views. 

“ I tell you what is the matter with those scoundrels,” 
said the elder of the two, a large, pampered young fel- 
low; “they need cold steel — they ought to be made to 
work.” 

“How would that suit us?” laughed the other. 

“We don’t have to.” 

“ Hello ! What’s old Bart after ? ” observed the first one. 

“Shekels,” said the other, and yawned. 

“After her — he’s taking notice.” 

“Oh! no; he’s wedded to the tape — goes into the 
Grand five times a day and reads the tape.” 

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MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


“Bet you, he courts her.” 

“How ’ll you prove it?” 

“Ask her ” 

“Bet you you daren’t ask her/’ 

“How much?” 

“What you like.” 

“I don’t want to win your money.” 

“Don’t you? Then hand me back that little fifteen 
hundred you picked up from me last week.” 

“That was square, but this is a certainty.” 

“ I’d chance it — bet you a thousand, Jim, you daren’t 
ask her to her face if old Bart isn’t courting her and 
hasn’t asked her to marry him.” 

“Oh! that’s different. You want to make me put up 
and then make my bet for me. I tell you what I’ll bet 
— that she’s the only girl I know I wouldn’t ask that.” 

“That may be. Now, I tell you what I’ll bet — that 
you want a drink — ring the bell.” 

“That’s a certainty, too,” laughed his friend, and they 
turned and sank wearily in deep chairs till a drink 
should give them energy to start a fresh discussion. 

Having put down the Rev. Bartholomew at the door 
of her aunt’s imposing mansion, Eleanor Leigh, after a 
moment of indecision, directed her coachman to drive 
to a certain street in the section known as “downtown,” 
and there she stopped at a pleasant looking old house, 
and jumping out of the carriage, ran up the worn stone 
steps and rang the bell. It was a street that had once 
been fashionable, as the ample, well-built houses and 
the good doors and windows testified. But that fickle 
161 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

jade, Fashion, had long since taken her flight to other 
and more pretentious sections and shops, loan-offices, 
and small grocers’ markets had long engulfed the man- 
sions of the last generation. Had any gauge of the 
decadence of the quarter been needed it might have 
been found in the scornful air of Miss Leigh’s stout 
coachman as he sat on his box. He looked unutter- 
ably disgusted, and his chin was almost as high as the 
chins of his tightly reined-up horses. 

Miss Leigh asked of the rather slatternly girl who 
came to the door, if the Miss Tippses were in, and if so, 
would they see her. When the maid went to see if they 
were at home, Miss Leigh was shown into a large and 
very dark room with chairs of many patterns, all old, 
placed about in it, a horsehair sofa on one side, a mar- 
ble-topped table in the centre; an upright piano on 
the other side, and on a small table a large piece of 
white coral under a glass cover. Where the fire- 
place had once been, a large register now stood 
grating off the heat that might try in vain to escape 
through it. 

Presently the maid returned. “Miss Pansy” was in, 
and would the lady please walk up. It was in the third 
story, back, at the top of the stairs. Miss Leigh ran up 
and tapped on the door, waited and tapped again. 
Then, as there was no answer, she opened the door 
cautiously and peeped in. It was a small hall-room, 
bare of furniture except two chairs, a sewing-machine, 
a table on which was an ironing-board at which at the 
moment stood a little old lady with a forehead so high 
162 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


as to be almost bald. She was clad in a rusty black 
skirt, a loose morning sacque of blue cotton, and she 
wore loose bedroom-slippers. Her sleeves were rolled 
up, and her arms were thin and skinny. She held a 
flat-iron in her hand, with which she had evidently been 
ironing a white under-garment which lay on the board, 
and another one was on a little gas-stove which stood 
near a stationary wash-stand. As Miss Leigh opened 
the door, the old lady gave a little exclamation of dismay 
and her hand went involuntarily to her throat. 

“Oh! I beg your pardon!” said the girl, starting to 
retire and close the door; “ I thought the servant told 

^ ^ tt 

me 

By this time the other had recovered herself. 

“ Oh! come in, won’t you ?” she said, with a smile and 
in a voice singularly soft and refined. “ My sister will 
be ready to receive you in a moment. I was only a 
little startled. The fact is,” she said laughing, “I 
thought the door was bolted; but sometimes the bolt 
does not go quite in. My sister — Won’t you take a 
chair? Let me remove those things.” She took up 
the pile of under-garments that was on one chair and 
placed it on top of a pile of dishes and other things on 
the other. 

“Oh! I am so sorry,” protested the girl, who observed 
that she was concealing the dishes; “I was sure the girl 
told me it was the door at the head of the stairs.” 

“She is the stupidest creature — that girl. I must 
really get my sister to speak to Mrs. Kale about her. I 
would, except that I am afraid the poor thing might 
163 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

lose her place. There is another door just off the little 
passage that she probably meant.” 

“ Yes — probably. It was I that was stupid.” 

“Oh! no, not at all. You must excuse the disorder 
you find. The fact is, this is our work-room, and we 
were just — I was just doing a little ironing to get these 
things finished. When your card was brought up — well, 
we both were — and as my sister is so much quicker, she 
ran to get ready and I thought I would just finish this 
when I was at it, and you would excuse me.” 

“Oh! I am so sorry. I wouldn’t for anything have 
interrupted you,” repeated the girl, observing how all 
the time she was trying unobtrusively to arrange her 
poor attire, rolling down her sleeves and smoothing her 
darned skirt, all the while with a furtive glance of her 
eye toward the door. 

“ Oh! my dear, I wouldn’t have had you turned away 
for anything in the world. My sister would be desolee . 
We have a better room than this, where we usually re- 
ceive our visitors. You will see what a nice room it is. 
We can’t very well afford to have two rooms; but this is 
too small for us to live in comfortably and we have to 
keep it because it has a stationary wash-stand with hot 
water, which enables us to do our laundering.” 

“Yes, I see,” murmured Miss Leigh softly. 

“You see, we earn our living by making under- 
clothes for — for a firm ” 

“I see, and what nice work you do.” She was han- 
dling a garment softly. 

“Yes, my sister does beautiful work; and I used to 
164 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 

do pretty well, too; but I am troubled a little with my 
eyes lately. The light isn’t very good at night — and the 
gas is so expensive. I don’t see quite as well as I used 
to do.” 

“How much can you do?” asked her visitor, who 
had been making a mental calculation. 

“Why, I — It is hard to tell. I do the coarser work 
and my sister does the finishing; then she usually laun- 
ders and I iron when I am able. I suffer with rheuma- 
tism so that I can’t help her very much.” 

“ I hope you make them pay you well for it,” blurted 
out the girl. 

“Why, we used to get a very good price. We got till 
recently seven cents apiece, but now it has been cut 
down — that was for everything, laundering and ironing, 
too. We are glad to get that.” 

“ How on earth do you manage to live on it ? ” 

“Oh! we live very well — very well, indeed,” said the 
little lady cheerfully. “Mrs. Kale is very good to us. 
She lets us have the rooms cheaper than she would any 
one else. You see she used to know us when we lived 
back in the East. Her father was a clerk in our father’s 
office, and her mother went to school with us. Then 
when we lost everything and were turned out, we found 
we had to make our own living and we came here to see 
about our case, and she found we were here — and that’s 
the way we came to be here. But don’t you let my sister 
know I told you about the sewing,” she said, dropping 
her voice, as a brisk step was heard outside the door. 
“Ah! here she is now!” as at the moment the door 
165 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

opened and a brisk little old lady, almost the counter- 
part of her sister, except that she might have been ten 
years her junior, that is, sixty instead of seventy years 
of age, tripped into the room. 

“Oh! my dear Miss Leigh, how good of you to come 
all the way out here to call on us! Sister, what in the 
world are you doing ? Why will you do this ? I can’t 
keep her from amusing herself! (This with a shake of 
the head and a comical appeal for sympathy from her 
visitor.) Won’t you walk into our sitting-room? Now, 
sister, do go and make yourself presentable. You know 
she will slave over all sorts of queer things. She really 
loves sewing and ironing. I’m quite ashamed to have 
you come into this pig-sty. Walk in, won’t you?” 
And she led the way into a larger room adjoining the 
work-room, leaving Miss Leigh in doubt which was the 
more pathetic, the little old lady still delving over the 
ironing-board, making no pretence to conceal their 
poverty, or the other in her poor “best,” trying to con- 
ceal the straits in which they were fallen. 

Eleanor had observed that the older sister’s gaze had 
constantly rested on the rose she wore, and as they were 
going out, the latter called her sister’s attention to it. 
She said, she thought it possibly the most beautiful rose 
she had ever seen. 

“Won’t you have it?” said Eleanor, and unpinned it. 

“Oh! no, indeed, I wouldn’t deprive you of it for any- 
thing. It is just where it ought to be.” 

Eleanor persisted, and finally overcame both her re- 
luctance and her sister’s objection. 

166 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


She was struck with the caressing way in which she 
took and held it, pressing it against her withered 
cheek. 

“Sister, don’t you remember the Giant-of-Battles we 
used to have in our garden at Rosebank ? This reminds 
me of it so — its fragrance is just the same.” 

“Yes. We used to have a great many roses,” ex- 
plained the younger sister, as she led the way into the 
next room as if she were asking Eleanor into a palace, 
though this room was almost as bare of furniture as the 
other, the chief difference being an upright case which 
was manifestly a folding-bed, and a table on which were 
a score of books, and a few old daguerreotypes. 

“Your friend, Mr. Marvel, was here the other day. 
What a nice young man he is.” 

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “I am going out to see him. 
Where has he moved to ?” Miss Pansy said she did not 
know the street; but her sister had the address. She 
would go and see. When she came back, she went over 
and opened the old Bible lying on the table. “Here is 
where we keep the addresses of those we especially 
value,” she said, smiling. “Oh! here it is. When he 
was here the other day, he brought us a treat; a whole 
half-dozen oranges; won’t you let me prepare you one? 
They are so delicious.” 

Eleanor, who had been holding a bank-note clutched 
in her hand, thanked her with a smile, but said she must 
go. She walked across the room, and took up the Bible 
casually, and when she laid it down it gaped a little in a 
new place. 


167 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Oh, you know we have had quite an adventure,” 
said Miss Pansy. 

“An adventure? Tell me about it.” 

“Why, you must know there is a young man here I 
am sure must be some one in disguise. He is so — well, 
not exactly handsome, but really distinguished looking, 
and he knows all about railroads and things like that.” 

“You’d better look out for him,” said Miss Leigh. 

“ Oh, do you think so ? My sister and I were think- 
ing of consulting him about our affairs — our railroad 
case, you know.” 

“Oh! Well, what do you know about him?” 

“Nothing yet. You see, he has just come; but he 
joined us on the street this morning when we were 
going out — just shopping — and offered to take our 
bundles — just two little bundles we had in our hands, 
and was so polite. My dear, he has quite the grand 
air!” 

“ Oh, I see. Well, that does not necessarily make 
him a safe adviser. Why not let me ask my father about 
your matter ? He is a railroad man, and could tell you 
in a minute all about it.” 

“Oh, could you ? That would be so kind in you.” 

“But you must tell me the name of the road in which 
you had the stock.” 

“ Oh, my dear. I don’t know that I can do that. I 
only know that it was the Transcontinental and some- 
thing and something else. I know that much, because 
it was only about sixty miles long, and we used to say 
that the name was longer than the road. My father 
168 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


used to say that it would some day be a link in a trans- 
continental chain — that’s where it got its name, you 
know.” 

“Well, look out for your prince in disguise,” said the 
girl, smiling as she rose to take her leave. 

That evening at dinner, after Eleanor had given her 
father an account of her day, with which she always 
beguiled him, including a description of her visit to the 
two old ladies, she suddenly asked, “Father, what rail- 
road was it that used to be known as the ‘Transcontin- 
ental Something and Something ?’” 

“The what?” 

“The ‘Transcontinental Something and Something 
Else ? ’ It was about sixty miles long, and was bought 
up by some bigger road and reorganized.” 

“I suppose you mean the ‘Transcontinental, North- 
western and Great Iron Range Road/ That about 
meets the condition you mention. What do you know 
about it?” 

“Was it reorganized?” 

“Yes; about twenty years ago, and again about ten 
years ago. I never quite understood the last reorganiza- 
tion. Mr. Argand had it done — and bought up most of 
the stock.” 

“Was any one squeezed out?” 

“Sure — always are in such cases. That is the object 
of a reorganization — partly. Why are you so interested 
in it ?” Mr. Leigh’s countenance wore an amused look. 

“ I have two friends — old ladies — who lost everything 
they had in it.” 


169 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I guess it wasn’t much. What is their name?” 

“It was all they had. They are named Tipps.” 

Mr. Leigh’s expression changed from amusement to 
seriousness. “Tipps — Tipps?” he repeated reminis- 
cently. “Bassett Tipps? I wonder if they were con- 
nected with Bassett Tipps ? ’ 

“They were his daughters — that was their father’s 
name. I remember now, Miss Pansy told me once.*' 

“You don’t say so! Why, I used to know Colonel 
Tipps when he was the big man of this region. He com- 
manded this department before I came out here to live, 
and the old settlers thought he was as great a man as 
General Washington. He gave old Argand his start. 
He built that road, — was, in fact, a man of remarkable 
foresight, and if he had not been killed — Argand was his 
agent and general factotum — They didn’t come into 
the reorganization, I guess?” 

“That’s it — they did not — and now they want to get 
their interest back.” 

“Well, tell them to save their money,” said Mr. Leigh. 
“It’s gone — they can’t get it back.” 

“They want you to get it back for them.” 

“Me!” exclaimed Mr. Leigh. “They want me to 
get it back! Oh, ho-ho! They’d better go after your 
Aunt Sophia and Canter.” 

“Yes; I told them you would.” 

“You did ?” Mr. Leigh’s eyes once more lit up with 
amusement. 

“Yes: you see they were robbed of every cent they 
had in the world, and they have not a cent left.” 

170 


MISS LEIGH SEEKS WORK 


“Oh! no, they were not robbed. Everything was 
properly done and absolutely regular, as I remember. 
It must have been. I think there was some sort of 
claim presented afterward by the Tipps Estate which 
was turned down. Let me see; McSheen had the 
claim, and he gave it up — that was when? Let me 
see. He became counsel for your Uncle Argand in — 
what year was it ? — you were a baby — it must have been 
eighteen years ago.” 

“That was nineteen years ago, sir. I am now 
twenty,” said his daughter, sitting up with a very grand 
air. 

The father’s eyes lit up with pride and affection as 
he gazed at the trim, straight figure and the glowing face. 

“You were just a little baby — so big.” He meas- 
ured a space of about two span with his hands. “That 
was your size then, for I know I thought your Uncle Ar- 
gand might have made me counsel instead of McSheen. 
But he didn’t. And that was McSheen’s start.” 

“He sold out,” said the girl with decision. 

“Oh, no — I don’t think he would do that. He is a 
lawyer.” 

“Yes, he would. He’s a horrid, old, disreputable 
rascal. I’ve always thought it, and now I know it. 
And I want you to get my old ladies’ interest back for 
them.” 

“I can’t do that. No one can. It’s too long ago. 
If they ever had a claim it’s all barred, long ago.” 

“It oughtn’t to be— if it was stolen,” persisted his 
daughter, “and it was.” 


171 


XV 

THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 

Having decided that Mrs. Kale’s did not present the 
best advantages, I determined to move to more suitable 
quarters. I chose a boarding-house, partly by accident 
and partly because it was in a semi-fashionable quarter 
which I liked, and I paid Mrs. Starling, the landlady, 
a decisive person, two weeks’ board in advance, so as 
to have that long a lease at any rate, and a point from 
which to take my bearings. I had learned of the place 
through Kalender, who was deeply enamored of Miss 
Starling, a Byzantine-hued young lady, and who re- 
garded the house somewhat as Adam is assumed to 
have regarded Eden after his banishment. Mrs. Star- 
ling was, in this case, the angel of the flaming sword. 
She had higher ambitions for Miss Starling. 

I had less than forty dollars left, and fifteen of that 
was borrowed next day by a fellow-boarder named 
Pushkin, who occupied the big front room adjoining 
my little back hall-room, and who had “forgotten to 
draw any money out of bank,” he said, but would 
“return it the next day at dinner time,” a matter he 
also forgot. I was particularly struck with him not be- 
cause he had a title and was much kotowed to by our 
landlady and her boarders — especially the ladies, as 
172 


THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 


because I recalled his name in juxtaposition with Miss 
Leigh’s in the flamboyant account of the ball the night 
after I arrived. 

I was now ensconced in a little pigeon-hole of an 
office in a big building near the court-house, where, 
with a table, two chairs, and a dozen books, I had 
opened what I called my “law office,” without a client 
or an acquaintance; but with abundant hopes. 

I found the old principle on which I had been reared 
set at naught, and that life in its entirety was a vast 
struggle based on selfishness. 

I was happy enough at first, and it was well I was. 
It was a long time before I was happy again. Having 
in mind Miss Leigh, I wrote and secured a few letters 
of introduction; but they were from people who did not 
care anything for me to people who did not care anything 
about them — semi-fashionable folk, mainly known in 
social circles, and I had no money to throw away on 
society. One, indeed, a friend of mine had gotten for 
me from Mr. Poole to a man of high standing both in 
business and social circles, the president of a manufac- 
turing company, with which, as I learned later, Mr. 
Poole had formerly some connection. This gentle- 
man’s name was Leigh, and I wondered if he were the 
same person who had been posted by Kalender at the 
head of my story of the delayed train. I thought of 
presenting the letter. It, however, was so guarded that 
I thought it would not do me the least good, and, besides, 
I did not wish to owe anything to Lilian Poole’s father, 
for I felt sure his influence had always been against me, 
173 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and I was still too sore to be willing to accept a favor at 
his hands. 

It was well I did not present it, for Mr. Poole with 
well-considered and characteristic prudence, had written 
a private letter restricting the former letter to mere 
social purposes, and had intimated that I had been a 
failure in my profession and was inclined to speculate. 
This character he had obtained, as I subsequently 
learned, from Peck. 

The new conditions with which I was confronted had 
a singular effect on me. I was accustomed to a life 
where every one knew me and I knew, if not every one, 
at least something good or bad about every one. 

Here I might have committed anything short of 
murder or suicide without comment, and might have 
committed both without any one outside of the reporters 
and the police and Dix caring a straw about it. 

I felt peculiarly lonely because I was inclined to be 
social and preferred to associate with the first man I 
met on the street to being alone. In fact, I have always 
accounted it one of my chief blessings that I could find 
pleasure and entertainment for a half-hour in the com- 
pany of any man in the world except a fool or a man 
of fashion, as the old writers used to speak of them, or 
as we call them now, members of the smart set. 

The first things that struck me as I stepped out into 
the thronged streets of the city were the throngs that 
hurried, hurried, hurried along, like a torrent pouring 
through a defile, never stopping nor pausing — only 
flowing on, intent on but one thing — getting along. 
174 


THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 


Their faces, undistinguished and indistinguishable in 
the crowd, were not eager, but anxious. There was 
no rest, and no room for rest, more than in the rapids 
of Niagara. It was the bourgeoisie at flood, strong, 
turgid, and in mass, ponderant; but inextinguishably 
common. As I stood among them, yet not of them, I 
could not but remark how like they were in mass and 
how not merely all distinction but all individuality per- 
ished in the mixing. I recalled a speech that my father 
had once made. “I prefer countrymen/’ he said, “to 
city men. The latter are as like as their coats. The 
ready-made-clothing house is a great civilizer, but also a 
great leveler. Like the common school of which you 
boast, it may uplift the mass, but it levels — it destroys 
all distinction.” 

This came home to me now. 

I had a proof of its truth, and, I may add, of the 
effect of urban influences not long after I launched on 
the restless sea of city life. I was passing one day 
along a street filled with houses, some much finer than 
others, when my way was blocked by a child’s funeral 
in front of a small but neat house beside one much 
more pretentious. The white hearse stood at the door 
and the little white coffin with a few flowers on it was 
just about to be borne out as I came up. A child’s 
funeral has always appealed to me peculiarly. It 
seems so sad to have died on the threshold before even 
opening the door. It appeared to me suddenly to have 
brought me near to my kind. And I stopped in front 
of the adjoining house to wait till the sorrowing little 
175 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

cortege had entered the carriage which followed behind 
the hearse. A number of other persons had done the 
same thing. At this moment, the door of the larger 
house next door opened, and a woman, youngish and 
well-dressed, appeared and stood on her steps waiting 
for her carriage which stood at some little distance. 

As I was standing near her, I turned and asked her 
in an undertone: 

“Can you tell me whose funeral this is?” 

“ No, I cannot,” she said, so sharply that I took a good 
look at her as she stood trying to button a tight glove. 

“Oh! I thought, perhaps, you knew as they are your 
next-door neighbors.” 

“Well, I do not. It’s no concern of mine,” she said 
shortly. She beckoned to her carriage across the way. 
The coachman who had been looking at the funeral 
caught sight of her and with a start wheeled his horses 
around to draw up. The number of persons, however, 
who had stopped like myself prevented his coming up 
to her door, which appeared to annoy the lady. 

“Can’t you move these people on?” she demanded 
angrily of a stout officer who stood like the rest of us, 
looking on. 

“It’s a funeral,” he said briefly. 

“Well, I know it is. I don’t expect you to interfere 
with that. It’s these idlers and curiosity mongers who 
block the way that I want moved to clear a way for my 
carriage. And if you can’t do it, I’ll ask Mr. McSheen 
to put a man on this beat who can. As it happens I 
am going there now.” Insolence could go no farther. 
176 


THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 


"Let that carriage come up here, will you?” said the 
officer without changing his expression. "Drive up, 
lad,” he beckoned to the coachman who came as near 
as he could. 

"To Mrs. McSheen’s,” said the lady in a voice evi- 
dently intended for the officer to hear, "and next time, 
don't stand across the street staring at what you have 
no business with, but keep your eyes open so that you 
won't keep me waiting half an hour beckoning to you.” 
She entered the carriage and drove off, making a new 
attack on her glove to close it over a pudgy wrist. I 
glanced at the coachman as she closed the door and I 
saw an angry gleam flash in his eye. And when I 
turned to the officer he was following the carriage with 
a look of hate. I suddenly felt drawn to them both, 
and the old fight between the People and the Bour- 
geoisie suddenly took shape before me, and I found 
where my sympathies lay. At this moment the officer 
turned and I caught his eye and held it. It was hard 
and angry at first, but as he gave me a keen second 
glance, he saw something in my face and his eye 
softened. 

"Who is Mr. McSheen ? ” I asked. 

"The next mayor,” he said briefly. 

"Oh!” I took out my card under an impulse and 
scribbled my office address on it and handed it to him. 
"If you have any trouble about this let me know.” 

He took it and turning it slowly gazed at it, at first 
with a puzzled look. Then as he saw the address his 
expression changed. 


177 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

He opened his coat and put it carefully in his pocket. 

“ Thank you, sir,” he said finally. 

I turned away with the consciousness that I had had 
a new light thrown on life, and had found it more self- 
ish than I had dreamed. I had begun with high hopes. 
It was, indeed, ever my nature to be hopeful, being 
healthy and strong and in the prime of vigorous youth. 
I was always rich when at my poorest, only my heavy 
freighted ship had not come in. I knew that though the 
larder was lean and storms were beating furiously off 
the coast, somewhere, beating her way against the con- 
trary winds, the argosy was slowly making headway, 
and some day I should find her moored beside my pier 
and see her stores unladen at my feet. The stress and 
storm of the struggle were not unwelcome to me. I 
was always a good fighter when aroused; but I was 
lazy and too indolent to get aroused. Now, however, 
I was wide awake. The greatness of the city stirred 
my pulses. Its blackness and its force aroused my 
sleeping powers, and as I stepped into the surf and felt 
the rush of the tides as they swept about and by me, I 
felt as a fair swimmer might who steps for the first time 
in a fierce current and feels it clutch his limbs and draw 
him in. I was not afraid, only awakened and alive to 
the struggle before me, and my senses thrilled as I 
plunged and rose to catch my breath and face the vast 
unknown. Later on I found that the chief danger I 
had not counted on: the benumbing of the senses, the 
slow process under which spirit, energy, courage, and 
even hope finally die. 


178 


THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 

One who has never had the experience of starting in 
a big city alone, without a connection of any kind, can- 
not conceive what it means: the loneliness — utter as 
in a desert — the waiting — the terrible waiting — being 
obliged to sit day after day and just wait for business 
to come, watching your small funds ooze out drop by 
drop, seeing men pass your door and enter others’ 
offices and never one turn in at yours, till your spirit sinks 
lower and lower and your heart dies within you. One 
who has not felt it does not know what it is to be out of 
work and not able to get it. The rich and fat and sleek 
— the safe and secure — what know they of want! 
Want, not of money, but of work: the only capital of 
the honest and industrious poor! It is the spectre that 
ever haunts the poor. It makes the world look as 
though the whole system of society were out of joint — 
as if all men were in conspiracy against you — as if God 
had forgotten you. I found men in a harder case than 
mine — men in multitude, with wives and children, the 
babe perishing at the mother’s withered breast, the 
children dying for food, staggering along the streets 
seeking work in vain, while wealth in a glittering flood 
poured through the streets in which they perished. 
This bitter knowledge I came to learn day after day 
till I grew almost to hate mankind. The next step is 
war against society. Not all who wage it hate the men 
they fight. It is the cause they hate. There I sat day 
after day, full of hope and eagerness and — now that 
my conceit was somewhat knocked out of me — with 
not only abundant ability, but the stern resolve to 
179 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

transact any business which might be entrusted to 
me, and just rotted to despair. No wonder men 
go to the devil, and enlist to fight the whole estab- 
lishment of organized society. I almost went. When 
I look back at it now it seems like a miracle that I 
did not go wholly. Pride saved me. It survived long 
after hope died. Sometimes, I even thought of the 
pistol I had in my trunk. But I had made up my 
mind to live and win. There, too, came in Pride. I 
could not bear to think of Lilian Poole and Peck. How 
she would congratulate herself and how Peck would 
gloat! No, I could not give him that satisfaction. 
Peck did me a good turn there. A strong enmity, well 
based, is not always without good results; but Peck 
should not smear my memory with pretended pity. 
So I starved, but held on. When I got so that I could 
endure it no longer, I used to go out and walk up and 
down the streets — sometimes the fashionable streets — 
and look at the handsome residences and the fine car- 
riages and automobiles flashing by and the handsomely 
dressed people passing, and recall that I was as good 
as they — in my heart, I thought, better. Some of them 
with kind faces I used to fancy my friends; but that they 
did not know I was in town. This conceit helped me. 
And at times I used to fancy that I lived in a par- 
ticular house, and owned a particular team : thus living 
for a brief moment like a child in “ making pictures.” A 
house is sometimes personal and well-nigh human to me. 
It appears to have qualities almost human and to express 
them on its face: kindness, hostility, arrogance, breadth 
180 


THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 


or narrowness, and brutal selfishness are often graven 
on its front I have often felt that I could tell from the 
outside of a house the characteristics of the people 
within. Arrogance, ignorance, want of tact, preten- 
tiousness and display, spoke from every massy doorway 
and gaudy decoration with a loudness which would 
have shocked a savage. This being so, what characters 
some of the wealthy people of our cities must have! 
It must be one of the compensations of the poor that 
the houses of the rich are often so hideous and unhome- 
like. 

The mansion I selected finally as mine was a light 
stone mansion, simple in its style, but charming in its 
proportions; not one of the largest, but certainly one 
of the prettiest in the whole city. Amid a waste of 
splendid vulgarity it was almost perfect in its harmo- 
nious architectural design and lines, and had a sunny, 
homelike look. It stood in an ample lot with sun and 
air all around it, and grass and flowers about it. Our 
fathers used to say, “ seated,” which has a more estab- 
lished and restful sound. It looked a home of refine- 
ment and ease. Its stable was set back some dis- 
tance behind and a little to one side, so that I could 
see that it was of the same stone with the mansion 
and just enough of the same general style to in- 
dicate that it belonged to the mansion, and the teams 
that came out of it were the nattiest and daintiest in 
the city. 

One day as I was walking, trying to divert myself 
from *ny loneliness, a brougham rolled out of this stable 
181 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

with a pair of airy, prancing bays, shining like satin, 
and drew up to the carriage-block a little before me, 
and a young lady came out of the house as I passed by. 
My heart gave a leap, for it was the girl I had seen on 
the train. I took her in, rather than scanned her as she 
tripped down the stone steps, and she glanced at me for a 
second as if she thought I might be an acquaintance. 
She made as she stood there one of the loveliest pictures 
I had ever laid eyes on : her trim, slim figure, exquisitely 
dressed, in the quietest way; soft, living brown hair, 
brushed back from a white, broad forehead; beautiful, 
speaking eyes under nearly straight brows; and a 
mouth neither too big for beauty nor too small for 
character; all set off by a big black hat with rich 
plumes that made a background for what I thought the 
loveliest face I had ever seen. 

Something pleasant had evidently just happened 
wthin; for she came out of the door smiling, and I 
observed at the same moment her eyes and her dimples. 
I wondered that people did not always smile: that 
smile suddenly lit up everything for me. I forgot my 
loneliness, my want of success, myself. Her hands 
were full of parcels as she came down the steps, and 
just as I passed the wind lifted the paper from one — 
a bunch of flowers, and in trying to recover it she 
dropped another and it rolled down to my feet. I 
picked it up and handed it to her. It was a ball, one 
of those big, squashy, rubber balls with painted rings 
around it, that are given to small children because they 
cannot do anything with them. She thanked me 
182 


THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 


sweetly and was turnng to her carriage, when under 
a sudden impulse, I stepped to the door, just as I 
should have done at home, and, lifting my hat, said, 
“ I beg your pardon, but mayn’t I open your door for 
you?” 

She bowed, looking, perhaps, just the least shade 
surprised. But, having handed her in, I was afraid of 
embarrassing her, and was backing away and passing 
on when she thanked me again very graciously. Again 
I lifted my hat and again got a look into her deep eyes. 
As the carriage rolled off, she was leaning back in it, 
and I felt her eyes upon me from under the shade of that 
big hat with a pleasant look, but I had assumed an 
unconscious air, and even stopped and picked up, as 
though carelessly, a couple of violets she had dropped 
as she crossed the sidewalk; and after a sniff of their 
fragrance, dropped them into my pocket-book, because 
they reminded me of the past and because I hated to see 
them lie on the hard pavement to be crushed by passing 
feet. The book was empty enough otherwise, but 
somehow I did not mind it so much after the violets 
were there. 

“Who lives in that house?” I asked of an officer. 

“Mr. Leigh, the banker and big west-side street-car 
man — runs all the lines out that way — all the Argand 
estate don’t run,” he added. He waved his arm to in- 
clude a circle that might take in half the town or half the 
world. “The big house in the middle of the block is 
Mrs. Argand’s — the great Philanthropist, you know? 
Everybody knows her.” I did not, but I did not care; 
183 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I knew all I wanted to know — I knew who Miss Leigh 
was. I reflected with some concern that this was the 
name of the vice-president of the Railway whom I had 
attacked through Kalender and of the man to whom 
Mr. Poole’s perfunctory letter was addressed. I went 
back to my office in better spirits, and, having no brief 
to work on, even wrote a poem about the violets — about 
her leaving a track of violets behind her. 

I was drawn to that street a number of times after- 
ward, but I saw her no more. 

I don’t believe that love often comes at first sight; 
but that it may come thus, or at least, at second sight, 
I have my own case to prove. It may be that my 
empty heart, bruised and lonely in that great city, was 
waiting with open door for any guest bold enough to 
walk in and claim possession. It may be that that 
young lady with her pleasant smile, her high-bred face 
and kindly air, crossing my path in that stranger- 
thronged wilderness, was led by Providence; it may 
be that her grace and charm were those I had pictured 
long in the Heavenward dreams of youth and but now 
found. However it was, I went home in love with an 
ideal whose outward semblance was the girl with the 
children’s toys — truly in love with her. And the vision 
of Lilian Poole never came to me again in any guise 
that could discomfort me. From this time the vision 
that haunted me and led me on was of a sweet-eyed girl 
who dimpled as she smiled and dropped her violets. 
The picture of Lilian Poole, standing by the marble 
mantel in her plush-upholstered parlor, adjusting her 
J84 


THE LADY OF THE VIOLETS 


bracelet so as to set off her not too small wrist, while I 
faced my fate, flitted before my mind, but she was a 
ghost to me, and my heart warmed as I thought of the 
kdy of the violets and the cnildren’s toys. 


185 


XVT 


THE SHADOW OF SHAM 

I soon changed back to my first boarding-house. 
After my two weeks were out for which I had prepaid, 
I went to my landlady, Mrs. Starling, a tall, thin woman 
with high cheek bones, a cold eye and a close mouth, 
and told her frankly I could not pay any more in ad- 
vance, and that, though I would certainly pay her within 
a short time, it might not be convenient for me to pay 
her by the week, and I left it with her whether she would 
keep me on these terms. She did not hesitate a second. 
Her first duty was to herself and family, she said, by 
which she meant her daughter, “Miss Starling,” as 
she always spoke of her, but whom the irreverent por- 
tion of the boarders whom I associated with always 
spoke of as “Birdy,” a young woman who dressed 
much in yellow, perhaps because it matched her blon- 
dined hair, played vehemently on the piano, and enter- 
tained the young men who boarded there. “ Besides,” 
she “wanted the room for a dressing-room for a gentle- 
man who wished a whole suite,” she added, with what 
I thought a little undue stress on the word “gentleman,” 
as the “gentleman” in question was the person who 
had borrowed my money from me and never returned 
it: Count Pushkin, who occupied the big room next 
my little one. He had, as I learned, cut quite a dash 
186 


THE SHADOW OF SHAM 


in town for a while, living at one of the most fashionable 
hotels, and driving a cart and tandem, and paying 
assiduous attention to a young heiress in the city, daugh- 
ter of a manufacturer and street-car magnate; but 
latterly he had taken a room at Mrs. Starling’s, “in 
order,” he gave out, “ that he might be quiet for a time,” 
as a duke or duchess or something — I am not sure he 
did not say a king — who was his relative, had died in 
Europe. He had taken the greater part of the boarding- 
house by storm, for he was a tall, showy-looking fellow, 
and would have been handsome but for a hard and 
shifty eye. And I found myself in a pitiful minority in 
my aversion to him, which, however, after a while, 
gained some recruits among the young men, one of 
them, my young reporter, Kalender, who had moved 
there from Mrs. Kale’s. 

The boarding-house keeper’s daughter was desper- 
ately in love with Pushkin, and, with her mother’s able 
assistance, was making a dead set for him, which par- 
tiality the count was using for what it was worth, hardly 
attempting meantime to disguise his amusement at 
them. He sang enough to be passable, though his voice 
was, like his eye, hard and cold; and he used to sing 
duets with Miss Starling: the method by which, accord- 
ing to a vivacious young Jew, named Isadore Ringar- 
ten, who lived in the house, he paid his board. I never 
knew how he acquired his information, but he was 
positive. 

“I vish,” said Isadore, “I could pay my board in 
vind — vith a little song. Now, I can sing so the Count 
187 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

he would give me all he is vorth to sing so like I sing; 
but I am not a count — efen on this side.” 

However this was, Pushkin paid the girl enough 
attention to turn the poor thing’s head, and made her 
treat harshly my reporter, Kalender, who was deeply 
in love with her, and spent all his salary on her for 
flowers, and lavished theatre tickets on her. 

The evening before I left I had to call Pushkin down, 
who had been drinking a little, and I must say, when I 
called, he came promptly. It was after dinner in “ the 
smoking room,” as the apartment was called, and he 
began to ridicule poor Victoria cruelly, saying she had 
told him her hair was yellow like that of the girls of his 
own country, and he had told her, no, that hers was 
natural, while theirs was always dyed, and she swal- 
lowed it. 

“She is in loaf mit me. She swallow whatefer I gif 
her — ” he laughed. The others laughed, too. But I 
did not. I thought of Lilian Poole and Peck. Perhaps, 
I was thinking of my money, and I know I thought of 
the account of the ball which took place the day I 
arrived. I told him what I thought of his ridiculing a 
girl he flattered so to her face. He turned on me, his 
eyes snapping, his face flushed, but his manner cool and 
his voice level. 

“Ha-ah! Are you in loaf mit her, too, like poor 
Kalender, who spent all hees moneys on her, and what 
she laugh at to make me amused ? I gif her to you, den. 
I too not want her — I haf had her, you can take her.” 

He made a gesture as if tossing something contemptu- 

188 


THE SHADOW OF SHAM 


ously into my arms, and put his cigarette back in his 
teeth and drew a long breath. There were none but 
men present, and some of them had stopped laughing 
and were looking grave. 

“No, I am not in love with her,” I said quietly, 
standing up. “ I only will not allow you to speak so of 
any lady in my presence — that is all.” I was thinking 
of a girl who lived in a sunny house, and had once taken 
a lot of little dirty-faced children to feed them, and once 
had smiled into my eyes. I only knew her name, but 
her violets were in my pocket near my heart. I was 
perfectly calm in my manner and my face had whitened, 
and he mistook it, for he blurted out: 

“Oh! I vill nod ? I vill nod speaks in your presence. 
You vill gif me one little lesson? You who know te 
vorl so veil. I tank you, Millot!” 

He bowed low before me, spreading out his arms, and 
some of the others tittered. It encouraged him and he 
straightened up and stepped in front of me. 

“I vill tell you vat I vill does,” he proceeded. “I 
vill say vat I tarn please before you about anybodies.” 
He paused and cast about for something which would 
prove his boast. “Tere is nod a woman in tis town 
or in America, py tam! that vill nod gif herself to fon 
title — to me if I hax her, and say, ‘tank you, Count/ 
Ha, ah?” He bent his body forward and stuck his 
face almost into mine with a gesture as insulting as he 
could make it, and as I stepped back a pace to get a 
firm stand, he stuck out his tongue and wagged his head 
in derision. The next second he had turned almost 
189 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

a somersault. I had taken boxing lessons since Wolf- 
fert thrashed me. I saw the bottom of his boots. 
He was at precisely the right distance for me and I 
caught him fairly in the mouth. His head struck the 
floor and he lay so still that for a few moments I thought 
I had killed him. But after a little he came to and 
began to rise. 

“ Get up,” I said, “ and apologize to these gentlemen 
and to me.” I caught him and dragged him to his 
feet and faced him around. 

“You haf insulted me. I vill see about tis,” he splut- 
tered, turning away. But I caught him with a grip on 
his shoulder and steadied him. The others were all 
on my side now; but I did not see them, I saw only him. 

“Apologize, or I will fling you out of the window.” 
He apologized. 

The affair passed. The Count explained his bruises 
by some story that he had been run down by a bicycle, 
to which I learned he afterward added a little fiction 
about having stopped a runaway and having saved 
some one. But I had left before this little touch 
occurred to him. Mrs. Starling must have had some 
idea of the collision, though not of the original cause; 
for she was very decided in the expression of her wishes 
to have possession of “the dressing room” that night 
for the “gentleman,” and I yielded possession. 

The curious thing about it was that one reason I could 
not pay Mrs. Starling again in advance was that he still 
had my money which he had borrowed the day after 
I had arrived. 


190 


THE SHADOW OF SHAM 


From Mrs. Starling’s I went back to my old boarding- 
house, kept by Mrs. Kale, as a much cheaper one, in a 
much poorer neighborhood, where I was not asked to 
pay in advance, but paid at the end of the month by 
pawning my scarf-pins and shirt studs, and gradually 
everything else I had. 

I was brought up to go to church, my people having 
all been earnest Christians and devoted church people; 
but in my college years I had gone through the usual 
conceited phase of callow agnosticism; and partly from 
this intellectual juvenile disease and partly from self- 
indulgence, I had allowed the habit to drop into desue- 
tude, and later, during my first years at the bar, I had 
been gradually dropping it altogether. My conscience, 
however, was never quite easy about it. My mother 
used to say that the promise as to training up a child 
in the way he should go was not to be fulfilled in youth, 
but in age, and as my years advanced, I began to find 
that the training of childhood counted for more and 
more. Lilian Poole, however, had no more religion 
than a cat. She wished to be comfortable and to follow 
the general habit of the feline class to which she be- 
longed. She went to the Episcopal Church because it 
was fashionable, and whenever she had half an excuse 
she stayed away from church unless it were on a new- 
bonnet Sunday, like Easter or some such an occasion, 
when she made up by the lowness of her genuflexions 
and the apparent devoutness of her demeanor for all 
omissions. I must confess that I was very easily influ- 
enced by her at that time, and was quite as ready to 
191 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

absent myself from church as she was, though I should 
have had a much deeper feeling for her if she had not 
violated what I esteemed a canon of life, that women, 
at least, should profess religion, and if she had not 
pretended to have questionings herself as to matters as 
far beyond her intellect as the Copernican system or 
Kepler’s laws. I remember quoting to her once Dr. 
Johnson’s reply to Boswell, when the latter asked if 
Poole, the actor, were not an atheist: “Yes, sir, as a 
dog is an atheist; he has not thought on the matter at 
all.” 

“Dr. Samuel Johnson?” she asked. “You mean 
the one who wrote the Dictionary ?” and I saw that she 
was so pleased with her literary knowledge in knowing 
his name that she never gave a thought to the matter 
that we were discussing, so let it drop. 

As David said, that in his trouble he called upon the 
Lord, so now, in my solitude and poverty, I began once 
more to think on serious things, and when Sunday came 
I would dress up and go to church, partly in obedience 
to the feeling I speak of, and partly to be associated 
with people well dressed and good mannered, or pas- 
sably so. The church I selected was a large stone 

edifice, St. ’s, with a gilded cross on its somewhat 

stumpy spire, toward which I saw a richly clad con- 
gregation wending their way Sunday morning. 

The rector, as was stated in gilded letters on a large 
sign, was the Rev. Dr. Bartholomew Capon. I cannot 
say that the congregation were especially refined look- 
ing or particularly cordial; in fact, they were very far 
192 


THE SHADOW OF SHAM 

from cordial, and the solemn verger to whom I spoke, 
after turning a deaf ear to my request for a seat, took 
occasion, as soon as he had bowed and scraped a richly 
dressed, stout lady up the aisle, to look me over on the 
sly, not omitting my shoes, before he allowed me to take 
a seat in one of the rear pews. 

The preacher — “The Rector,” as he spoke of himself 
in the notices, when he occasionally waived the rather 
frequent first personal pronoun — was a middle-aged 
gentleman with a florid complexion, a sonorous voice, 
a comfortable round person, and fair hands of which he 
was far from ashamed; for he had what, but for my 
reverence for the cloth, I should call a trick of using his 
hand with a voluminous, fine cambric handkerchief held 
loosely in it. His face was self-contained rather than 
strong, and handsome rather than pleasing. He was 
so good-looking that it set me on reflecting what relation 
looks bear to the rectorship of large and fashionable 
churches; for, as I recalled it, nearly all the rectors 
of such churches were men of looks, and it came to me 
that when Sir Roger de Coverley requested his old 
college friend to send him down a chaplain, he desired 
him to find out a man rather of plain sense than much 
learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a sociable 
temper, and, if possible, a man who knew something 
of backgammon. His sermon was altogether a second- 
ary consideration, for he could always read one of the 
Bishop of St. Asaph’s or Dr. South’s or Dr. Tillotson’s. 
Possibly, it is something of the same feeling that subor- 
dinates the sermons to the looks of rectors of fashionable 
193 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

churches. However, I did not have long to reflect on 
that idea, for my thoughts were given a new and perma- 
nently different, not to say pleasanter, direction, by the 
sudden appearance of a trim figure, clad in a gray suit 
and large gray hat, which, as it moved up the aisle, quite 
eclipsed for me “ the priest and all the people.” I was 
struck, first, by the easy grace with which the young 
girl moved. But, before she had turned into her pew 
and I caught sight of her face under the large hat which 
had hidden it, I knew it was my young lady, Miss Leigh, 
whom I had helped up on the train and afterward into 
her carriage. It is not too much to say that the Rev. 
Dr. Capon secured that moment a new permanent 
member of his congregation. Before the service was 
over, however, I had been solemnized by her simple 
and unaffected devoutness, and when, in one of the 
chants, I caught a clear liquid note perfectly sweet and 
birdlike, I felt as though I had made a new and charm- 
ing discovery. 

The rector gave a number of notices from which I 
felt the church must be one of the great forces of the 
city for work among the poor, yet, when I glanced 
around, I could not see a poor person in the pews except 
myself and two old ladies in rusty black, who had been 
seated near the door. I was struck by the interest 
shown in the notices by my young lady of the large hat, 
from whose shapely little head with its well-coiled brown 
hair my eyes did not long stray. 

“I have,” he said, “in addition to the notable work 
already mentioned, carried on, through my assistant in 
194 


THE SHADOW OF SHAM 


charge, the work of St. Andrew’s chapel with gratiW- 
ing success. This work has reached, and I am glad 
to be able to say, is reaching more than ever before, the 
great ignorant class that swarms in our midst, and 
exhibits a tendency to unrest that is most disturbing. 
This is the class which causes most of the uneasiness 
felt in the minds of the thoughtful.” 

I observed that he did not mention the name of “the 
assistant in charge,” and my sympathy rather went out 
to the nameless priest, doing his work without the 
reward of even being mentioned. 

As to the sermon, I can only say that it was twenty 
minutes long, and appeared aimed exclusively at the 
sins of Esau (whom I had always esteemed a quite 
decent sort of fellow), rather than at those of the 
doctor’s congregation, whom he appeared to have a 
higher opinion of than of the Patriarchs. I recall the 
text: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these 
things shall be added unto you.” He made it very 
plain that to be pious and prudent was the best way 
to secure wealth. He held up a worldly motive and 
guaranteed a worldly reward. Such a sermon as that 
would have eased the most uneasy conscience in 
Christendom. 

When the congregation came out I dawdled in the 
aisle until my young lady passed, when I feasted my 
eyes on her face and finely curved cheek, straight nose, 
and soft eyes veiled under their long lashes. My two 
old ladies in black were waiting in the end of a pew and, 
as I observed by their smiles when she approached, 
195 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

waiting like myself to see her. I had already recognized 
them as the old ladies of the bundles, whom I had once 
helped on the street. How I envied them the smile and 
cordial greeting they received in return! I made the 
observation then, which I have often had confirmed 
since, that tenderness to the aged, like that to the very 
young, is the mark of a gentle nature. 

I heard them say, “ We know who has done the work 
out at the Chapel,” and she replied, “Oh! no, you must 
not think that. My poor work has been nothing. Your 
friend has done it all, and I think that the Doctor ought 
to have said so,” to which they assented warmly, and I 
did the same, though I did not know their friend’s name. 

As I had nowhere to go in particular, I strolled slowly 
up the street, and then walked back again. And as I 
neared the church, I met the rector who had just left 
his robing-room. He was a fine-looking man on the 
street as well as in the chancel, and I was prompted to 
speak to him, and say that I had just heard him preach. 
He was, however, too impatient at my accosting him 
and so manifestly suspicious that I quickly regretted my 
impulse. His, “Well, what is it?” was so prompt on 
his lips and his suspicion of me was so clear in his cold, 
bluish eyes, that I drew myself up and replied: “Oh! 
nothing. I was only going to say that I had just heard 
you preach — that’s all.” 

“Oh! Ah! Well, I’m much obliged. I’m very glad 
if I’ve helped you.” He pulled out his watch. 

“Helped me! You haven’t,” I said dryly and 
turned away. 


196 


THE SHADOW OF SHAM 


A quarter of an hour later, as I strolled along the 
street lonely and forlorn, I saw him hurrying up the 
steps of the large house which had been pointed out to 
me as Mrs. Argand’s, the great philanthropist. 


w 


XVTJ 

THE GULF 

As I saw more of the city, its vastness, its might and 
its inhumanity grew on me. It was a world in itself, 
a world constructed on lines as different from that in 
which I had lived as if it had been Mars; a city as dif- 
ferent from the smaller cities I had known as if it had 
been Babylon or Nineveh. The contrasts were as great 
as they could have been in the capitals Sardanapalus 
built — structures so vast that they must have dwarfed 
the towers of Sardis — so rich and splendid that the Hang- 
ing Gardens of Babylon must have been outshone — 
reared their stupendous bulk into the smoky air and cast 
into perpetual shade all that lay near them. Hard beside 
their towering mass lay a region filled with the wretched 
tenements of the poor, and a little further off the houses 
of the well-to-do. And there was not a greater contrast 
between the vastness of the one and the pitiful squalor 
of the other than between the life of the owners of the 
former and that of the denizens of the closely packed 
tenements which dwindled in their shadow. Splendor 
and squalor were divided often only by a brick wall. 
The roar of the tide that swept through the teeming 
streets drowned the cry of wretchedness, and only the 
wretched knew how loud it was. I had never seen such 
wealth, and I had never dreamed of such poverty. 

198 


THE GULF 


The vulgar make the parade; the refined pass so 
quietly as scarcely to be observed. The vulgarity of 
the display of riches began to oppress me. I discovered 
later the great store of refinement, goodness and sweet- 
ness that was hidden in the homes alike of an element 
of the wealthy, the merely well-to-do and the poor. 
But for a time it was all eclipsed by the glare of the 
vulgar and irresponsible rich. Arrogance, discontent, 
hardness, vulgarity, were stamped in many faces, and 
spoke in every movement of many of those I saw, even 
of the most richly dressed. 

I think it was more the vulgarity and insolence of 
those I saw decked in the regalia of wealth than any- 
thing else — than even my own poverty — that changed 
my views and turned me for a time from my easy in- 
difference as to social conditions toward a recognition 
that those conditions are ridiculously antiquated, a 
bent I have never quite got over, though I was later 
drawn back to a more conservative point of view than, 
under the hatred of sham and the spur of want, I was 
driven to occupy for some time. They have no tradi- 
tions and no ideals. They know no standard but 
wealth, and possess no ability to display it but through 
parade. They feel it necessary to prove their novel 
position by continual assertion. They think that wealth 
has exempted them from decency. They mistake 
civility for servility and rudeness for gentility. Their 
best effort is only a counterfeit, a poor imitation of 
what they imagine to be the manners of the upper class 
abroad whose indifferent manners they ape. 

199 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Misery loves company,” and when I wanted com- 
fort I left the section of splendor and display, of riotous 
extravagance and glittering wealth, and went to those 
poorer than myself; a practice I can commend from 
experience. 

When I got so desperate that I could not stand it any 
longer, and was afraid I might fall down dead or do 
myself violence, I used to turn my steps in another 
direction and walk through the poorer part of the city — 
not the worst part — where there was nothing but dirt 
and squalor and filth: that sickened me, and I had 
never had much sympathy with the class that lived 
there. They always appeared contented enough with 
their surroundings and rather to enjoy themselves in 
their own way. And not the successful workman’s 
quarter. There was an assurance and assumption 
there that offended me. The assumption bred of 
sudden success, no matter in what class, is everywhere 
equally vulgar after its kind. It was the part of the city 
where the people were respectable, but where they could 
just hold on with all their struggling and striving, that 
I used to go into; the part where there were patches, not 
rags; and sometimes an effort to keep down the dirt, 
and where a bit of a plant in a little pot or a little cheap 
ornament in a window told of the spark of sentiment 
that could yet live amid the poverty and hardness about 
it. They always place them in the windows, partly, no 
doubt, to get the light, and partly, perhaps, to show 
passers-by that there is something within better than 
might be looked for next door. These people on their 
200 


THE GULF 


holidays always make toward the open country; they 
try to get away from their robuster, more successful 
brothers, and get back near to Nature — the old mother 
that cares nothing for success; and repays only accord- 
ing to the love her children bear her. Here I often 
walked as I grew more wretched. 

In this section I used to see people with whom I felt 
in touch: a man with the badgered look in his eye that 
made me know that he was at bay; or a woman with 
that resigned air which hopeless struggling stamps in 
the face and binds on the shoulders. These drew me 
nearer to my kind, and made me feel that there were 
others in a harder case than I, and gave me a desire 
to help them. I came to know some of them by sight 
and the houses in which they lived, and sometimes I 
spoke to them and exchanged a word or two, and the 
effort to take a cheerful view with them helped me, 
and sent me back to my little lonely cubby-hole cheered 
and in some sort comforted and resolute to hold out a 
little longer. But it was hungry work. 

This element composed the great body of the popu- 
lation, but deep down below them lay a yet lower ele- 
ment weltering in an infinite and hopeless misery to 
which even the poor class I speak of were alien. They 
were generically spoken of at times as the criminal 
classes. They were not this at all, though among them 
were many criminals — driven to crime by necessity — 
because there was no means for them to subsist, no 
possible means nor hope outside of their casual and 
occasional violation of the statute law by which they 
201 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

secure enough for empty bellies and freezing bodies 
merely to keep alive. They live among and on the 
poor, and one of the bitterest trials of poverty is the 
continual presence and preying of these parasites who 
like other vermin pursue them and cannot be kept off. 
Their only common crime is desperate, infinite poverty 
— poverty beyond hope, for they have nothing — not 
work, nor the hope of work — not even the power to 
work, if it should be offered them As the well-to-do 
look with anxiety to the loss of their property and the 
consequent sinking to some lower plane of moderate 
poverty, so the poor look with shuddering or, at last, 
with despair to sinking into the slough of this hopeless 
state for which there is no name, because none has 
been devised adequate to describe its desperate misery. 
Often but a block, or even but a wall divides the reeking 
slum where they creep and fester and rot, from the 
broad, well-lighted, smooth-paved avenue where irre- 
sponsible wealth goes clattering by in its wild orgy of 
extravagance and reckless mirth. The eye of the 
mangy and starving wolf from his thicket gleams dully 
at the glittering pageant of heartless irresponsibility and 
waste. Should the pack ever find a leader bold enough 
to spring, what will be the end ? 

At present they are hungry enough, but they have not 
organized; they are not yet a hunting pack, but only 
scattered bands, slinking about hungrily, fighting and 
preying on each other, the larger bands with the bolder 
leaders driving off the weaker and unorganized. But 
let them all organize once and the end will not be yet. 

202 


THE GULF 


Day after day I saw my last few dollars leak away, and, 
though I replenished my thin purse at times by pawning 
everything pawnable I had, yet this, too, gradually 
oozed away. Fortunately I had plenty of clothes, 
which I had bought in my flush days, so I could still 
make a respectable appearance. 

. As money got low all sorts of schemes used to present 
themselves to me to replenish my pocket. One was 
to go out as a laborer on the streets, clean bricks, or do 
anything. I was not lazy. I would have walked 
around the world for a case. I do not think I was 
ashamed of it, for I knew it was respectable, but I was 
afraid some one I knew might pass by; I was afraid 
that Pushkin or Mrs. Starling might see me, and — yes, 
that that young girl from the colonial house might 
recognize me. I had often thought of her violets since 
I had dropped them into my pocket-book. And now, 
when this idea came to me, I took them out and looked 
at them. They still retained a faint fragrance. What 
would be the result if she should pass by and see me 
cleaning bricks — me a laborer, and Pushkin — the 
thoughts came together — should see me ? I would win 
on my own line if it took me all my life. 

The idea of Pushkin suggested another plan. Why 
not gamble? Gambling was gentlemanly — at least, 
gentlemen gambled. But did they play for a living? 
I had gambled a little myself in the past; played poker, 
and, like most men, prided myself on my game, though 
I generally lost in the long run; and when I was making 
good resolutions after my failure, I had made up my 
203 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

mind never to play again anywhere. And I had always 
held to the opinion that, as soon as a man played for his 
living, he crossed the line and ceased to be a gentleman. 
Now, however, it began to appear to me as if this were 
the only plan by which I could make anything, and as 
if I should have a good excuse for breaking my resolu- 
tion. I resisted the temptation for some time; but one 
night, when I had pawned nearly everything and had 
only three or four dollars left, I went out, and after a long 
but half-hearted battle gave up, as such are always lost, 
and turned into a street across an alley from my office 
where I knew there was a gambling place over a saloon 
kept by .one Mick Raffity. I went boldly up the stairs. 
Even as I mounted them I felt a sort of exhilaration. I 
stopped at the door and my old resolution not to play 
again stirred and struggled a little. I caught it, however, 
with a sort of grip almost physical, and gave it a shake 
till it was quiet. I knew I should win. The blaze of 
light within cheered me, and, without hesitating an 
instant, I walked across the room to where a crowd 
stood watching the play of some one seated at a table. 
It was a large and richly decorated room, with a few 
rather daring pictures on the walls and much gilding 
about the ceiling. The hot air, heavy with tobacco 
smoke and fumes of one kind and another, met me in a 
blast as I entered, and involuntarily I thought of a 
sweat-shop I had once seen in my earlier days. But 
the sensation passed and left me warm and exhilarated. 
As I passed along, a man looked at me and half nodded. 
I knew he was the proprietor. I made my way in and 
204 


THE GULF 


caught the dealer’s expressionless eye, and taking out a 
note as carelessly as if my pockqjts were stuffed with 
them, I glanced over the board to select my bet. At 
one end of the table sat the large, heavy-browed, middle- 
aged man I had run into one night on the stairway 
leading from the alley to the building where I had my 
office. He was somewhat tipsy and evidently in bad 
luck; for he was heated and was betting wildly. Near 
by sat a big, sour-looking fellow, flashily dressed, whom 
I recognized as having been one of my fellow-travellers 
on the side-tracked train, the one who had talked to the 
trainmen of their wrongs. He still wore his paste 
diamonds, his silk hat and patent-leather shoes. But 
I took little notice of these. Casually, as I dropped my 
note, my eye fell on the player at the middle of the table. 
He was surrounded by stacks of chips. As I looked he 
raked in a new pile; at least a hundred dollars, and he 
never changed a particle. He was calmer than the 
dealer before him. He was in' evening dress and 
success had given him quite an air. I caught up my 
note without knowing it and fell back behind a group 
of young men who had just come up. Curious things 
happen sometimes. I found my note doubled up in my 
hand when I had got out of doors, a quarter of an hour 
later. All I remember is my revulsion at seeing that 
gambler sitting there raking in money so calmly, with 
my money for his stake in his pocket, and I turned 
out for him: an adventurer who said all American 
women were at his bidding. It recalled to me the 
girl I had seen on the train and had handed, later, 
205 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

into her carriage, and the good resolutions I had 
formed. And it strung me up like wine. I felt that I 
was a coward to have come there and as bad as 
Pushkin. 

Just as I turned to leave the place a party of young 
fellows entered the room. They had come from a 
dinner at Mr. Leigh’s, as I understood from their 
talk, and were “going on” to a dance unless the luck 
should run to suit them. They were in high spirits, 
“Mr. Leigh’s champagne” having done its work, and 
they were evidently habitues of the place, and good 
patrons, I judged, from the obsequious respect paid 
them by the attendants. The leader of them was a 
large, rather good-looking young fellow, but with marks 
of dissipation on a face without a line of refinement in 
it. The others all seemed to be his followers. They 
greeted familiarly and by name the eager attendants 
who rushed forward to take their coats, and the leader 
asked them casually who was in to-night. 

“The Count’s here, I think, sir,” said one whom 
they called Billy. 

“The Count! Coll McSheen’s staked him again,” 
said the young leader. “And he swore to me he’d never 
let him have another cent, with oaths enough to damn 
him deeper than he will be damned anyhow. Come on, 
I’ll skin him clean.” 

I lingered for a moment to see him “skin” Pushkin. 

They sauntered up to the table and, after a greeting 
to the Count, began to toss bills on the board as though 
they grew on trees. The least of them would have kept 
206 


THE GULF 


me going for months. I had never seen money handled 
so before and it staggered me. 

“Who is that young man?” I asked of a man near 
me, nodding toward the leader. “He must be pretty 
rich.” 

“Rich! You bet. He’s Jim Canter. Got all his 
daddy’s money and going to get all the Argand and 
Leigh piles some day. He’ll need it, too,” added my 
informant. 

“I should think so.” I recalled his name in connec- 
tion with Miss Leigh’s name in the account of the ball, 
and I was feeling a little bitter. 

“Why, he’d just as lief try to corner water as to bet 
a hundred dollar bill on a card. This is just play to 
him. He’d give all he’d win to-night to any one of his 
women.” 

“His women?” 

“Yes. He’s one of the real upper class.” 

“The upper class!” So this was the idea of the 
upper class held by this man and his kind! My soul 
revolted at the thought of this man standing as the type 
of our upper; class, and I was turning away when Push- 
kin shoved back his chair. As I turned he looked up 
and I saw him start, though I did not catch his glance. 
The dealer saw him, too, and as he looked at me I 
caught his eye. He motioned to me, but I took no notice. 
As I walked out the man near the door spoke to me. 

“There’s supper in the next room.” 

“Thank you. I don’t want it.” 

“ Come in again. Better luck to-morrow.” 

207 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“For you, I hope,” I said, and I saw his mystification. 

I had of late been having an uncomfortable thought 
which was beginning to worry me. The idea of doing 
away with myself had suggested itself to me from time 
to time. I do not mean that I ever thought I should 
really do it; for when I reflected seriously, I knew I 
should not. In the first place, I was afraid; and in the 
next place, I never gave up the belief that I should some 
day achieve success. When I analyzed my feelings I 
found that the true name for my unhappiness was ego- 
tism. But the idea would come up to me and now began 
to pester me. I had a pistol which I could never bring 
myself to pawn, though nearly everything else was 
pledged. I put the pistol away; but this did not help 
matters; it looked like cowardice. So that evening I 
had taken the pistol out and put it into my pocket when 
I went into the street. If I could only catch some bur- 
glar breaking into a bank, or some ruffian beating a 
woman, or some scoundrel committing any crime, it 
would attract attention, and I might get work. I often 
used to think thus, but nothing ever happened, and I 
knew nothing would happen that evening when I 
walked out of the gambling house. So presently the 
pistol began to be in my way, and my mind went to 
working again on the ease with which I could go to my 
office and lock myself in. Still I kept on, and presently 
I found myself near the river, a black stream that I had 
often thought of as the Styx. It was as black and silent 
now, as it slipped on in the darkness, as the River of 
Death. 


208 


THE GULF 


I was sauntering along, chewing the cud of fancy, 
wholly bitter — and sinking lower and lower every step 
in the slough of despond, working over what would come 
if I should suddenly chuck up the whole business and 
get out of life — pondering how I should destroy all 
marks by which there could be any possibility of iden- 
tification, when the current of my thoughts, if that moody 
train of dismal reflection could be dignified with such a 
name, was turned aside by a small incident. As I wan- 
dered on in the darkness, the figure of a woman stand- 
ing — a shadow in the shadow — at a corner of an alley 
arrested my attention. Even in the gloom the attitude 
of dejection was such as to strike me, and I saw or felt, 
I know not which, that her eyes were on me, and that in 
some dim, distant way they contained an appeal. I 
saw that she was young, and in the dusk the oval out- 
line of a face that might have both refinement and beauty 
challenged my attention. Was she a beggar or only an 
unhappy outcast, waiting in the darkness for the sad 
reward which evil chance might fling to her wretched- 
ness ? I put my hand in my pocket, thinking that she 
might beg of me, and I would give her a small portion 
of my slender store, but she said nothing and I passed 
on. After a little, however, still thinking of her dejected 
air and with a sudden sympathy for her wretchedness, 
I turned back. She was still standing where I left her. 
I passed slowly by her, but she said nothing, though I 
felt again that her eyes were on me. Then my curiosity 
or possibly, I may say, my interest, being aroused, I 
turned again and walked by her. 

209 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

"Why so sad to-night?” I said, with words which 
might have appeared flippant, but in a tone which she 
instantly recognized for sympathy. She turned half 
away and said nothing and I stood silent watching her, 
for her face must once have been almost beautiful, 
though it was now sadly marred, and an ugly scar across 
her eye and cheek, as if it might have come from the 
slash of a razor, made that side drawn and distorted. 

"Do you want money?” 

She slowly shook her head without looking at me* 

"What is it, then ? Maybe, I can help you ?” 

She turned slowly and looked at me with such inde- 
scribable hopelessness in her face that my heart went 
out to her. 

"No, I’m past help now.” 

"Oh, no, you’re not.” My spirits rose with the 
words, and I felt suddenly as if I had* risen out of the 
slough which had been engulfing me, and as though I 
had gotten my feet on a firm place where I could reach 
out a hand to help this despairing and sinking sister. 

"Yes, past help now.” 

"Come and walk with me.” And as she did not stir, 
I took her hand and drew it through my arm and gently 
led her forward along the street. I had a strange feeling 
as I walked along. I somehow felt as though I had es- 
caped from something which had been dragging me 
down. It was a strange walk and a strange and tragic 
story that she told me — of having left her home in the 
country, inspired by the desire to do something and be 
something more than she was, a simple farmer’s daugh- 
210 


THE GULF 


ter in another State, with some little education such as 
the country schools could give; of having secured a po- 
sition in a big shop where, for a small sum, she worked 
all day and learned to see and love fine clothes and 
beautiful things; of having fallen in with one or two 
gay companions in this and other shops who wore the 
fine clothes and had the beautiful things she admired; 
of having been put forward because she was pretty and 
polite; and then of having met a young man, well 
dressed and with fine manners; of having fallen in love 
with him and of having accepted his attentions and his 
gifts; and then, of having been led astray by him; and 
then — of such an act of base betrayal as, had I not had it 
substantiated afterward in every horrid detail, I should 
never have believed. I had known something of the 
wickedness of men and the evil of an uncontrolled life 
in the city, where the vilest passions of the heart are 
given play, but I had never dreamed of anything so re- 
volting as the story this girl told me that night. She 
had been deliberately and with malice aforethought 
lured not only to her destruction but to a life of slavery 
so vile as to be unbelievable. The man who had se- 
cured her heart used his power over her to seize and sell 
her into a slavery for which there is no name which 
could be used on the printed page. Here, stricken by 
the horror of her situation, she had attempted to escape 
from her captors, but had been bodily beaten into sub- 
mission. Then she had made a wild dash for liberty and 
had been seized and slashed with a knife until she fell 
under her wounds and her life was in imminent danger. 

211 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

From this time she gave up and became the slave of 
the woman of the house: “ Smooth Ally,” she said they 
called her; but she would not give me her name or her 
address. She would have her killed, she feared, if she 
did so. Here she gradually had yielded to her fate and 
had lived in company with her other slaves, some will- 
ing, some as unwilling as herself, until finally her place 
was needed for one more useful to her owner, when she 
had been handed on from one owner to another, always 
sinking in the scale lower and lower, until at last she had 
been turned into the street with her choice limited only 
to the river or the gutter. Long before she had finished 
her story I had made up my mind that life still held for 
me something which I might do, however poor and 
useless I knew myself to be. The only person I could 
think of who might help her was Miss Leigh. How 
could I reach her ? Could I write her of this poor crea- 
ture? She could not go back to her home, she said, 
for she knew that they had heard of her life, and they 
were “good and Christian people.” She used to write 
to and hear from them, but it had been two years and 
more since she had written or heard now. Still she gave 
me what she said was her father’s address in another 
State, and I told her I would find out how they felt 
about her and would let her know. I gave her a part of 
what I had. It was very little, and I have often wished 
since then that I had had the courage to give her all. 

I was walking on with her, trying to think of some 
place where she might find a shelter and be taken care 
of until her friends could be informed where she was, 
212 


THE GULF 


when, in one of the streets in front of a bar-room, we 
heard mingled laughter and singing and found a group 
of young men, ruffians and loafers, standing on the side- 
walk, laughing at the singers who stood in the street. 
As we drew near, I saw that the latter were a small 
group of the Salvation Army, and it appeared to me a 
providence. Here were some who might help her. At 
the moment that we approached they ended the dirge- 
like hymn they had been singing, and kneeling down in 
the street one of them offered a prayer, after which a 
woman handed around something like a tambourine, 
asking for a collection. The jeers that she encountered 
might have daunted a much bolder spirit than mine, 
and as each man either put in or pretended to put some- 
thing in, one a cent, another a button or a cigarette- 
stump, she responded, “ Thank you and God bless you.” 
I was ashamed to make an appeal to them there for the 
poor girl, so I walked with her a little further on and 
waited until the blue-clad detachment came along and 
their tormentors retired to warm themselves, without 
and within, in the saloon in front of which they had 
been standing. I accosted the woman who had taken 
up the collection and asked her if she could take care 
of a poor girl who needed help badly, and I was struck 
by the kindness with which she turned and, after a 
moment’s glance, held out her hand to the girl. 

“Come with us,” she said, “and we will take you 
where you will find friends.” 

Even then the young woman appeared too frightened 
to accept her invitation. She clung to me and seemed to 
213 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

rely upon me, asking me to go with her, but partly from 
shame and partly from what may possibly have been a 
better motive, I told her my way led elsewhere, and, 
after persuasion, she went with the Salvationists, and I 
walked home happier than I had been in some time, 

I even took some steps to call public attention to the 
horrible stoiy the poor Magdalen had told me of her 
frightful experience, and actually wrote it up ; but 
when I took it to a paper — the one that had published 
my first article — I was given to understand that the 
account was quite incredible. The editor, a fox-faced 
man of middle age, with whom my paper secured me 
the honor of an interview, informed me that the story 
was an old one, and that they had investigated it 
thoroughly, and found it without the slightest founda- 
tion. If I wanted further proof of this, he said, he 
would refer me to Mr. Collis McSheen, one of the 
leading lawyers in the city, who had conducted the in- 
vestigation. 


214 


xvm 

THE DRUMMER 

I believe Mrs. Kale would have let me stay on free 
almost indefinitely; for she was a kind-hearted soul, 
much imposed on by her boarders. But I had been 
playing the gentleman there, and I could not bring 
myself to come down in her esteem. I really did not 
know whether I should be able to continue to pay her; 
so when my time was up, I moved again, to my land- 
lady’s great surprise, and she thought me stuck up and 
ungrateful, and was a little hurt over it, when, in fact, 
I only did not want to cheat her, and was moving out to 
the poorest part of the city, to a little house on which I 
had observed, one afternoon during one of my strolls, 
the notice of a room for rent at a dollar a week. I think 
a rose-bush carefully trained over the door decided me 
to take it. It gave me a bit of home-feeling. The 
violet, of course, is in color and delicacy the half- 
ethereal emblem of the tenderest sentiment of the heart. 
“The violets all withered when my father died,” sighed 
poor Ophelia. And next to violets, a rose-bush, grow- 
ing in the sun and dew, has ever stood to me for the 
purest sentiment that the heart can hold. 

I heard shortly afterward of the engagement of Miss 
Lilian Poole to the man she used to laugh at; but after a 
single wave of mortification that Peck should have won 
where I had lost, I did not mind it. I went out to look 
215 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

at the sunny house with the trees and the rose-bushes 
about it and wonder how I could meet Miss Leigh. 

The room I took when I left Mrs. Kale’s was only a 
cupboard some nine feet by six in the little house I have 
mentioned; but it was spotlessly clean, like the kind- 
looking, stout, blue-eyed Teuton woman who, with skirt 
tucked up, came to the door when I applied for lodging, 
and, as the price was nearer my figure than any other 
I had seen, I closed with Mrs. Loewen, and the after- 
noon I left Mrs. Kale’s sent my trunk over in advance. 
It held the entire accumulation of my life. There was 
something about the place and the woman that attracted 
me. As poor as the house was, it was beyond the 
squalid quarter and well out in the edge of the city, with 
a bit of grass before it, and there were not only plants 
in the windows well cared for; but there was even a 
rose-bush beside the door making a feeble attempt to 
clamber over it with the aid of strings and straps care- 
fully adjusted. 

The only question my landlady asked me was whether 
I was a musician, and when I told her no, but that I was 
very fond of music, she appeared satisfied. Her hus- 
band, she said, was a drummer. 

I asked if I might bring my dog, and she assented 
even to this. 

“ Elsa was fond of animals,” she said. 

When I bade good-by to Mrs. Kale and my friends 
at the boarding-house, I was pleased at the real regret 
they showed at my leaving. Miss Pansy and Miss 
Pinky came down to the drawing-room in their “best” 
216 


THE DRUMMER 


to say good-by; Miss Pinky with her “ scratch ” quite 
straight. And Miss Pansy said if they ever went back 
home she hoped very much I would honor them by 
coming to see them, while Miss Pinky, with a more 
practical turn, hoped I would come and see them “ there 
— and you may even bring your dog with you,” she 
added, with what I knew was a proof of real friendship. 
I promised faithfully to come, for I wa^s touched by the 
kindness of the two old ladies who, like myself, had 
slipped from the sphere in which they had belonged, 
and I was rather grim at the reflection that they had been 
brought there by others, while I had no one to blame 
but myself — a solemn fact I was just beginning to face. 

When I walked out of the house I was in a rather low 
state of mind. I felt that it was the last day when I 
could make any pretension to being a gentleman. I 
had been slipping down, down, and now I was very 
near the bottom. So I wandered on in the street with 
Dix at my heels and my pistol in my pocket. 

Just then a notice of a concert, placarded on a wall, 
caught my eye, and I gave myself a shake together as 
an unmitigated ass, and determined suddenly that I 
needed some amusement and that a better use for the 
pistol would be to sell it and go to the concert. I would, 
at least, be a gentleman once more, and then to-morrow 
I could start afresh. So I hunted up a pawnshop and 
raising from the villain who kept it a few dollars on my 
pistol, had a good supper and then took Dix home and 
went to the symphony. As it happened, I got one of 
the best seats in the house. It was a revelation to me — 
217 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

a revolution in my thoughts and feelings: the great 
audience, gay with silks and flowers and jewels, filling 
up all the space about and above me rising up to the 
very top of the vast auditorium. I did not have time 
at first to observe them, I only felt them; for just as I 
entered the Director came out and the audience ap- 
plauded. It exhilarated me like wine; I felt as if it had 
been myself they were applauding. Then the music 
began: The “Tannhauser Overture.” It caught me up 
and bore me away: knighthood, and glory, and love 
were all about me; the splendor of the contest; the 
struggle in which a false step, a cowardly weakness 
might fling away the world; the reward that awaited the 
victor, and the curse if he gave way, till I found myself 
dazzled, amazed, and borne down by the deluge of 
harmonious sound — and could do nothing but lie drift- 
ing at the mercy of the whelming tide, and watch, half- 
drowned, whatever object caught my eye. The first 
thing I took in was the tall old Drummer who towered 
above the great bank of dark bodies with swaying arms. 
Still and solemn he appeared out of the mist, and seemed 
like some landmark which I must hold on to if I would 
not be swept away. No one appeared to pay much 
attention to him, and he appeared oblivious of all but 
his drums. Now he leant over them and listened to 
their throbbing, now he beat as if the whole world de- 
pended on it. I held on to him and felt somehow as if 
he were the one to whom the Director looked — the 
centre of all the music and pomp and mystery, and I 
must keep him in sight. 


218 


THE DRUMMER 


I don’t know much of what came on the programme 
after that; for I was wakened by the storm of applause 
which followed and during the intermission I looked 
about at the audience around me. They filled the 
house from floor to roof; every seat was occupied, and 
the boxes looked like banks of flowers. All the faces 
were strange to me, though, and I was beginning to feel 
lonely again, and was turning to my old Drummer, 
when, sweeping the boxes, my eye fell on a girl who 
caught me at once. She was sitting a little forward 
looking across toward the orchestra with so serious an 
expression on her lovely face that I felt drawn to her 
even before I took in that she was the girl I had seen on 
the train and whom I had handed into her carriage. 
As I gazed at her this came to me — and with it such a 
warm feeling about my heart as I had not had in a long 
time. I looked at the men about her, one of whom was 
the good-looking clergyman, Dr. Capon, and the next 
instant all my blood was boiling — there, bending down 
over her, talking into her ear, so close to her that she had 
to sit forward to escape his polluting touch, was the 
gambler whom I had heard say not three weeks before 
that every American girl was open to a proposal from 
him. I don’t know really what happened after that. I 
only remember wishing I had my pistol back — and being 
glad that I had pawned it, not sold it; for I made 
up my mind anew in that theatre that night to live and 
succeed, and preserve that girl from that adventurer. 
When the concert was over I watched the direction they 
took, and made my way through the crowd to the exit by 
219 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

which they would go into the foyer. There I waited and 
presently they came along. She was surrounded by a 
little party and was laughing heartily over something one 
of them had just said, and was looking, in the rich pink 
wrap which enveloped her, like a rich pink rosebud. I 
was gazing at her intently, and caught her eye, and no 
doubt struck by my look of recognition, she bowed. She 
had not really thought of me, she was still thinking of 
what had been said, and it was only a casual bow to 
some one in a crowd who knows you and catches your 
eye; but it was a bow, and it was a smiling one, and again 
that warm feeling surged about my heart which had 
come when I met her on the street. The next second 
that fellow came along. He was taller than most of the 
crowd, and well dressed, was really a handsome enough 
fellow but for his cold eyes and hard look. The eyes 
were too bold and the chin not bold enough. He was 
walking beside a large, blondish girl with shallow blue 
eyes, who appeared much pleased with herself or with 
him, but at the moment he was bowing his adieux to 
her while she was manifestly trying to hold on to him. 

“I don’t think you are nice a bit,” I heard her say. 
petulantly, as they came up to me. “You have not 
taken the least notice of me to-night.” 

This he evidently repudiated, for she pouted and 
smiled up at him. “Well, then, I’ll excuse you this 
time, but you needn’t be running after her. She 
won’t ” 

I did not hear the rest. I was thinking of the girl 
before me. 


220 


THE DRUMMER 


He was looking over the heads of the people before 
him, and the next moment was elbowing his way to 
overtake my young lady. Close to him in the crowd, 
as he came on, stood Mrs. Starling's daughter, painted, 
and in her best finery, and I saw her imploring eyes 
fastened on him eagerly. He glanced at her and she 
bowed with a gratified light dawning in her face. I saw 
his face harden. He cut her dead. Poor girl! I saw 
her pain and the look of disappointment as she fur- 
tively followed him with her eyes. He pushed on after 
my young lady. But I was ahead of him. Just before 
he reached her, I slipped in, and when he attempted to 
push by I stood firm before him. 

“ Beg pardon,” he said, trying to put me aside to step 
ahead of me. I turned my head and over my shoulder 
looked him in the face. 

“I beg your pardon.” 

“Oh!” he said. “How do? Let me by.” 

“To ply your old trade?” I asked, looking into his 
eyes, over my shoulder. 

“Ah!” I saw the rage come into his face and he 
swore some foreign oath. He put his hand on my 
shoulder to push me aside; but I half turned and looked 
him straight in the eyes and his grasp relaxed. He had 
felt my grip once — and he knew I was not afraid of him, 
and thought I was a fool. Ajid his hand fell. 

I walked in front of him and kept him back until the 
party with my young lady in it had passed quite out of 
the door, and then I let him by. For that evening, at 
least, I had protected her. 

221 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I walked to my lodging with a feeling of more content 
than I had had in a long time. My heart had a home 
though I had none. It was as if the shell in which I 
had been cramped so long were broken and I should 
at last step out into a new world. I had a definite aim, 
and one higher than I ever had had before. I was in 
love with that girl and I made up my mind to win her. 
As I walked along through the gradually emptying 
streets my old professor’s words came to me. They 
had been verified. I reviewed my past life and saw as 
clearly as if in a mirror my failures and false steps. I 
had moped and sulked with the world; I had sat in my 
cubby-hole of an office with all my talents as deeply 
buried as if I had been under the mounds of Troy, 
and had expected men to unearth me as though I had 
been treasure. 

It may appear to some that I exaggerated my feeling 
for a girl whom I scarcely knew at all. But love is the 
least conventional of passions; his victory the most un- 
expected and unaccountable. He may steal into the 
heart like a thief or burst in like a robber. The zephyr 
is not so wooing, the hurricane not so furious. Samson 
and Hercules lose their strength in his presence and, 
shorn of their power, surrender at discretion. Mightier 
than Achilles, wilier than Ulysses, he leads them both 
captive, and, behind them in his train, the long line of 
captains whom Petrarch has catalogued as his helpless 
slaves. Why should it then be thought strange that a 
poor, weak, foolish, lonely young man should fall be- 
fore him at his first onset! I confess, I thought it 
222 


THE DRUMMER 


foolish, and yet so weak was I that I welcomed the 
arrow that pierced my heart, and as I sauntered home- 
ward through the emptying streets, I hugged to my 
breast the joy that I loved once more. 

As I was on the point of ringing the door-bell there 
was a heavy step behind me, and there was my old 
Drummer coming along. He turned in at the little gate. 
And I explained that I was his new lodger and had 
been to hear him play. 

“Ah! You mean to hear the orchestra?” 

“No, I don’t. I meant, to hear you — I went to the 
concert, but I enjoyed you most.” 

“Ah!” he chuckled at the flattery, and let me in, 
and taking a survey of me, invited me to come and 
have a bit of supper with him, which I accepted. 
His wife came in and waited on us, and he told her 
what I had said, with pleasure, and she laughed over 
it and rallied him and accepted it, and accepted 
me instantly as an old friend. It gave me a new 
feeling. 

A few minutes later there was another arrival. A 
knock on the street door, and the mother, smiling and 
winking at her husband, went and let in the newcomers : 
a plump, round-cheeked girl, the mingled likeness of 
her two parents, with red cheeks, blue eyes, smooth 
flaxen hair and that heifer-like look of shyness and con- 
tent which Teuton maidens have, and behind her a 
strapping looking young fellow with powerful shoulders, 
and a neck cased, in a net of muscles, a clear pink skin 
and blue eyes, and with a roll in his gait partly the effect 
223 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

of his iron muscles and partly of mere bashfulness. I 
was introduced and the first thing the mother did was 
to repeat delightedly the compliment I had paid the 
father. It had gone home, and the simple way the 
white teeth shone around that little circle and the pride 
the whole family took in this poor bit of praise, told 
their simplicity and warmed my heart. The father and 
mother were evidently pleased with their daughter’s 
young man — for the mother constantly rallied the 
daughter about Otto and Otto about her, drawing the 
father in with sly looks and knowing tosses of her head, 
and occasionally glancing at me to see if I too took in 
the situation. Although I did not yet know a word of 
their language, I could understand perfectly what she 
was saying, and I never passed an evening that gave 
me a better idea of family happiness, or greater satis- 
faction. When I went up to my little room I seemed, 
somehow, to have gotten into a world of reality and 
content: a new world. 

I awaked in a new world — the one I had reached the 
night before: the land of hope and content — and when 
I came down-stairs I was as fresh as a shriven soul, and 
I walked out into the street with Dix at my heel, as 
though I owned the earth. 

The morning was as perfect as though God had just 
created light. The sky was as blue and the atmosphere 
as clear as though the rain that had fallen had washed 
away with the smoke all impurity whatsoever, and 
scoured the floor of Heaven afresh. 

Elsa, with her chequered skirt turned back and a 
224 


THE DRUMMER 


white apron about her comely figure, was singing as 
she polished the outer steps, before going to her work in 
a box factory, and the sun was shining upon her bare 
head with its smooth hair, and upon the little rose-bush 
by the door, turning the rain-drops that still hung on it 
into jewels. She stopped and petted Dix, who had fol- 
lowed me down-stairs, and Dix, who, like his master, 
loved to be petted by a pretty woman, laid back his 
ears and rubbed his head against her. And, an hour 
later, a group of little muddy boys with their books in 
their hands had been beguiled by a broad puddle on 
their way to school and were wading in the mud and 
laughing over the spatters and splotches they were 
getting on their clothes and ruddy faces. As I watched 
them, one who had been squeezed out of the fun and 
stood on the sidewalk looking on and laughing, sud- 
denly seized with fear or envy shouted that if they did 
“not come on, Mith Thelly would keep them in”; and, 
stricken with a sudden panic, the whole flock of little 
sand-pipers started off and ran as hard as their dumpy 
legs would carry them around the corner. I seemed 
to be emancipated. 

I made my breakfast on a one-cent loaf of bread, 
taking a little street which, even in that section, was a 
back street, to eat it in, and for butter amused myself 
watching a lot of little children (among the last of 
whom I recognized my muddy boys, who must have 
found another puddle) lagging in at the door of a small 
old frame building, which I knew must be their school, 
though I could not understand why it should be in such 
225 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

a shanty when all the public schools I had seen were 
the most palatial structures. 

I took the trouble to go by that day and look at the 
house on the corner. It was as sunny as ever. And 
when on my way back to my office I passed Miss 
Leigh, the central figure of a group of fresh looking 
girls, I felt that the half shy smile of recognition which 
she gave me was a shaft of light to draw my hopes to 
something better than I had known. Dix was with 
me, and he promptly picked out his friend and received 
from her a greeting which, curiously enough, raised my 
hopes out of all reason. I began to feel that the dog 
was a link between us. 


226 


XIX 

RE-ENTER PECK 


It happened that the building in which I had taken 
an office bore a somewhat questionable reputation. 
I had selected it because it was cheap, and it was too 
late when I discovered its character. I had no money 
to move. The lawyers in it were a nondescript lot — 
criminal practitioners, straw-bail givers, haunters of 
police courts, etc.; and the other occupants were as 
bad — adventurers with wild-cat schemes, ticket-scalp- 
ers, cranks, visionaries with fads, frauds, gamblers, and 
thieves in one field or another, with doubtless a good 
sprinkling of honest men among them. 

It was an old building and rather out of the line of 
the best growth of the city, but in a convenient and 
crowded section. The lower floor was occupied with 
bucket-shops and ticket-scalpers’ offices, on the street; 
and at the back, in a sort of annex on an alley, was a 
saloon known as Mick Raffity’s; the owner being a 
solid, double-jointed son of Erin, with blue eyes as 
keen as tacks; and over this saloon was the gambling 
house where I had been saved by finding Pushkin. 

On the second floor, the best offices were a suite 
occupied by a lawyer named McSheen, a person of con- 
siderable distinction, after its own kind, as was the shark 
created with other fish of the sea after its kind : a lawyer 
of unusual shrewdness, a keen political boss, and a suc- 
227 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

cessful business man. I had, as happened, rented a 
cubby-hole looking out on a narrow well opposite the 
rear room of his suite. 

Collis McSheen was a large, brawny man, with a 
broad face, a big nose, blue eyes, grizzled black hair, a 
tight mouth and a coarse fist. He would have turned 
the scales at two hundred, and he walked with a step as 
light as a sick-nurse’s. The first time I ever saw him 
was when I ran into him suddenly in a winding, un- 
swept back stairway that came down on an alley from 
the floor below mine and was used mainly by those in a 
hurry, and I was conscious even in the dim light that 
he gave me a look of great keenness. As he appeared 
in a hurry I gave way to him, with a “Beg pardon” for 
my unintentional jostle, to which he made no reply 
except a grunt. I, however, took a good look at him as 
he passed along under a street lamp, with his firm yet 
noiseless step — as noiseless as a cat’s — and the heavy 
neck and bulk gave me a sense of his brute strength, 
which I never lost afterward. I soon came to know 
that he was a successful jury-lawyer with a gift of elo- 
quence, and a knack of insinuation, and that he was 
among the most potent of the political bosses of the 
city, with a power of manipulation unequalled by any 
politician in the community. He had good manners 
and a ready smile. He was the attorney or legal agent 
for a number of wealthy concerns, among them the 
Argand estate, and had amassed a fortune. He was 
also “the legal adviser” of one of the afternoon papers, 
the Trumpet , in which, as I learned later, he held, though 
228 


RE-ENTER PECK 

it was not generally known, a large and potent interest. 
He was now looming up as the chief candidate of the * 
popular party for Mayor, an office which he expected to 
secure a few months later. He was interested in a 
part of the street-car system of the city, that part in 
which “the Argand estate” held the controlling in- 
terest, and which was, to some extent, the rival system 
of that known as the “West Line,” in which Mr. Leigh 
held a large interest. I mention these facts because, 
detached as they appear, they have a strong bearing on 
my subsequent relation to McSheen, and a certain 
bearing on my whole future. But, on occasion he was 
as ready for his own purposes to attack these interests 
secretly as those opposed to them. He always played 
his own hand. To quote Kalender “he was deep.” 

My first real meeting with him gave me an impres- 
sion of him which I was never able to divest myself of. 

I was in my little dark cupboard of an office very lonely 
and reading hard to keep my mind occupied with some 
other subject than myself, when the door half opened 
quietly, with or without a preliminary knock, I never 
could tell which, and a large man insinuated himself in 
at it and, after one keen look, smiled at me. I recalled 
afterward how catlike his entrance was. But at the 
moment I was occupied in gauging him. Still smiling 
he moved noiselessly around and took his stand with 
his back to the one window. 

“You are Mr. Glave?” he smiled. “Glad to see 
you?” He had not quite gotten rid of the interroga- 
tion. 


229 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I expressed my appreciation of his good-will and 
with, I felt, even more sincerity than his; for I was 
glad to see any one. 

“ Always pleased to see young lawyers — specially bright 
ones/’ Here I smiled with pleasure that he should so 
admirably have “ sized me up,” as the saying goes. 

“You are a lawyer also?” I hazarded. 

“Yes. Yes. I see you are studious. I always like 
that in a young man — gives him breadth — scope.” 

I assented and explained that I had been in politics 
a little also, all of which he appeared to think in my 
favor. And so it went on till he knew nearly all about 
me. In fact, I became quite communicative. It had 
been so long since I had had a lawyer to talk with. I 
found him to be a remarkably well-informed man, and 
with agreeable, rather insinuating manners. He knew 
something of books too, and he made, I could not tell 
whether consciously or unconsciously, a number of 
literary allusions. One of them I recall. It was a 
Spanish proverb, he said: “The judge is a big man, 
but give your presents to the clerk.” 

“Well, you’ll do well here if you start right. The 
tortoise beats the hare, you know — every time — ev-ery 
time.” 

I started, so apt was the allusion. I wondered if 
he could ever have known Peck. 

“Yes, I know that. That’s what I mean to do,” 
I said. 

“ Get in with the right sort of folks, then when there’s 
any sweeping done you’ll be on the side of the handle.” 
230 


RE-ENTER PECK 


He was moving around toward the door and was looking 
out of the window reflecting. 

“I have a letter to a gentleman named Leigh,” I 
said. “ I have not yet presented it.” 

“Ah!” 

I turned and glanced at him casually and was struck 
with the singular change that had come over his face. 
It was as if he had suddenly drawn a fine mask over it. 
His eyes were calmly fixed on me, yet I could hardly 
have said that they saw me. His countenance was 
absolutely expressionless. I have seen the same de- 
tached look in a big cat’s eyes as he gazed through his 
bars and through the crowd before him to the far jungle, 
ocean spaces away. It gave me a sudden shiver and I 
may have shown that I was startled, but, as I looked, 
the mask disappeared before my eyes and he was 
smiling as before. 

“Got a pretty daughter?” he said with a manner 
which offended me, I could hardly tell why. 

“I believe so; but I do not know her.” I was angry 
with myself for blushing, and it was plain that he saw 
it and did not believe me. 

“You know a man ’t calls himself Count Pushkin?” 

“Yes, I know him.” 

“He knows her and she knows him.” 

“Does she? I know nothing about that.” 

“Kind o’ makin* a set for him, they say?” 

“Is she ? I hardly think it likely, if she knows him,” 
I said coldly. I wondered with what malignant intu- 
ition he had read my thoughts. 

231 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Oh! A good many people do that. They like the 
sound. It gives ’em power.” 

“Power!” 

“Yes. Power’s a pretty good thing to have. You 
can — ” He looked out of the window and licked his 
lips in a sort of reverie. He suddenly opened and closed 
his hand with a gesture of crushing. “Power and 
money go togither ?” And still smiling, with a fare- 
well nod, he noiselessly withdrew and closed the door. 

When he was gone I was conscious of a feeling of 
intense relief, and also of intense antagonism — a feeling 
I had never had for but one man before — Peck: a 
feeling which I never got rid of. 

One evening a little later I missed Dix. He usually 
came home even when he strayed off, which was not 
often, unless as happened he went with Elsa, for whom 
he had conceived a great fondness, and who loved and 
petted him in return. It had come to be a great bond 
between the girl and me, and I think the whole family 
liked me the better for the dog’s love of the daughter. 
But this evening he did not appear; I knew he was not 
with Elsa, for I remembered he had been in my office 
during the afternoon, and in consequence I spent an 
unhappy night. All sorts of visions floated before my 
mind, from the prize-ring to the vivisection table. I 
rather inclined to the former; for I knew his powerful 
chest and loins and his scarred shoulders would com- 
mend him to the fancy. I thought I remembered that 
he had gone out of my office just before I left and had 
gone down the steps which led to the alley I have 
232 


RE-ENTER PECK 

mentioned. This he sometimes did. I recalled that 
I was thinking of Miss Eleanor Leigh and had not 
seen or thought of him between the office and my 
home. 

I was so disturbed about him by bedtime that I went 
out to hunt for him and returned to my office by the 
same street I had walked through in the afternoon. 
When I reached the building in which my office was, 
I turned into the alley I have mentioned and went up 
the back stairway. It was now after midnight and it 
was as black as pitch. When I reached my office, think- 
ing that I might by a bare possibility have locked him in, 
I opened the door and walked in, closing it softly be- 
hind me. The window looked out on the well left for 
light and air, and was open, and as I opened the door 
a light was reflected through the window on my wall. 
I stepped up to close the window and, accidentally 
looking across the narrow well to see where the light 
came from, discovered that it was in the back office of 
Coll McSheen, in which were seated Mr. McSheen and 
the sour-looking man I had seen on the train with the 
silk hat and the paste diamond studs, and of all persons 
in the world, Peck! The name Leigh caught my ear 
and I involuntarily stopped without being aware that 
I was listening. As I looked the door opened and a 
man I recognized as the janitor of the building entered 
and with him a negro waiter, bearing two bottles of 
champagne and three glasses. For a moment I felt as 
though I had been dreaming. For the negro was 
Jeams. I saw the recognition between him and Peck, 
233 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and Jeams’s white teeth shone as Peck talked about 
him. I heard him say : 

“ No, suh, I don’ know nuthin’ ’t all about him. Ise 
got to look out for myself. Yes, suh, got a good place 
an’ I’m gwine to keep it!” 

He had opened the bottles and poured out the wine, 
and McSheen gave him a note big enough to make him 
bow very low and thank him volubly. When he had 
withdrawn Peck said: 

“You’ve got to look out for that rascal. He’s an 
awfully smart scoundrel.” 

“Oh! I’ll own him, body and soul,” said McSheen. 

“I wouldn’t have him around me.” 

“Don’t worry — he won’t fool me. If he does — ” 
He opened and closed his fist with the gesture I had 
seen him use the first day he paid me a visit. 

“Well, let’s to business,” he said when they had 
drained their glasses. He looked at the other men v 
“What do you say, Wringman ?” 

“You pay me the money and I’ll bring the strike all 
right,” said the Labor-leader, “and I’ll deliver the vote, 
too. In ten days there won’t be a wheel turning on his 
road. I’ll order every man out that wears a West Line 
cap or handles a West Line tool.” 

The “West Line”! This was what the street-car 
line was called which ran out into the poor section of 
the city where I lived, which Mr. Leigh controlled. 

“That’s all right. I’ll keep my part. D n him! 

I want to break him. I’ll show him who runs this 

town. With his d d airs.” 

234 


RE-ENTER PECK 


“That’s it,” said Peck, leaning forward. “IPs your 
road or his. That’s the way I figure it.” He rubbed 
his hands with satisfaction. “ I am with you, my friends. 
You can count on the Poole interest backing you.” 

“You’ll keep the police off?” said the Labor-leader. 

“Will I? Watch ’em!” McSheen poured out an- 
other glass, and offered the bottle to Peck, who declined 
it. 

“Then it’s all right. Well, you’d better make a cash 
payment down at the start,” said the Labor-leader. 

McSheen swore. “Do you think I have a bank in 
my office, or am a faro dealer, that I can put up a pile 
like that at midnight? Besides, I’ve always heard 
there’re two bad paymasters — the one that don’t pay 
at all and the one ’t pays in advance. You deliver the 
goods.” 

“Oh! Come off,” said the other. “If you ain’t a 
faro dealer, you own a bank — and you’ve a barkeeper. 
Mick’s got it downstairs, if you ain’t. Sj put up, or 
you’ll want money sure enough. I know what that 
strike’s worth to you.” 

McSheen rose and at that moment I became aware 
of the impropriety of what I was doing, for I had been 
absolutely absorbed watching Peck, and I moved back, 
as I did so, knocking over a chair. At the sound the 
light was instantly extinguished and I left my office and 
hurried down the stairs, wondering when the blow was 
to fall. 

The afternoon following my surprise of the confer- 
ence in McSheen ’s back room, there was a knock at my 
235 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

door and Peck walked into my office. I was surprised 
to see what a man-of-fashion air he had donned. He 
appeared really glad to see me and was so cordial that 
I almost forgot my first feeling of shame that he should 
find me in such manifestly straitened circumstan- 
ces, especially as he began to talk vaguely of a large 
case he had come out to look after, and I thought 
he was on the verge of asking me to represent his 
client. 

“You know we own considerable interests out here 
both in the surface lines and in the P. D. & B. D., he 
said airily. 

“No, I did not know you did. I remember that Mr. 
Poole once talked to me about some outstanding inter- 
ests in the P. D. & B. D., and I made some little inves- 
tigation at the time; I came to the conclusion that his 
interest had lapsed; but he never employed me.” 

“Yes, that’s a part of the interests I speak of. Mr. 
Poole is a very careful man.” 

“Very. Well, you see I have learned my lesson. 
I have learned economy, at least,” I laughed in reply to 
his question of how I was getting along in my new home. 
He took as he asked it an appraising glance at the poor 
little office. 

“A very important lesson to learn,” he said senten- 
tiously. “I am glad I learned it early.” He was so 
smug that I could not help saying, 

“You were always economical?” 

“Yes, I hope so. I always mean to be. You get 
much work?” 


236 


RE-ENTER PECK 


“No, not much — yet; still, you know, I always had 
a knack of getting business,” I said. “ My trouble was 
that I used to disdain small things and I let others attend 
to them. I know better than that now. I don’t think I 
have any right to complain.” 

“Oh — I suppose you have to put in night work, too, 
then ?” he added, after a pause. 

This then was the meaning of his call. He wished to 
know whether I had seen him in Coll McSheen’s office 
the night before. He had delivered himself into my 
hands. So, I answered lightly. 

“Oh! yes, sometimes.” 

I had led him up to the point and I knew now he 
was afraid to take a step further. He sheered off. 

“Well, tell me something,” he said, “if you don’t 
mind. Do you know Mr. Leigh?” 

“What Mr. Leigh?” 

“ Mr. Walter Leigh, the banker. ” 

“I don’t mind telling you at all that I do not.” 
“Oh!” 

I thought he was going to offer me a case; but Peck 
was economical. He already had one lawyer. 

“I had a letter of introduction to him from Mr. 
Poole,” I said. “ But you can say to Mr. Poole that I 
never presented it.” 

“Oh! Ah! Well -Pll tell him.” 

“Do.” 

“Do you know Mr. McSheen?” 

I nodded “Yes.” 

“ Do you know him well ? ” 

237 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Does any one know him well ?” I parried. 

“He has an office in this building ?” 

I could not, for the life of me, tell whether this was an 
affirmation or a question. So I merely nodded, which 
answered in either case. But I was pining to say to 
him, “Peck, why don’t you come out with it and ask me 
plainly what I know of your conference the other 
night?” However, I did not. I had learned to play a 
close game. 

“Oh! I saw your nigger, Jeams — ah — the other 
day.” 

“Did you? Where is he?” I wanted to find him, 
and asked innocently enough. 

“Back at home.” 

“How is he getting on ?” 

“Pretty well, I believe. He’s a big rascal.” 

“Yes, but a pleasant one, and an open one.” 

Peck suddenly rose, “Well, I must be going. I have 
an engagement which I must keep.” At the door he 
paused. “By the way, Mrs. Peck begged to be remem- 
bered to you.” 

He had a way of blinking, like a terrapin — slowly. 
He did so now. 

He did not mean his tone to be insolent — only to be 
insolent himself — but it was. 

“I’m very much obliged to her. Remember me 
to her.” 

That afternoon I strolled out, hoping to get a glimpse 
of Miss Leigh. I did so, but Peck was riding in a car- 
riage with her and her father. So he won the last trick, 
238 


RE-ENTER PECK 


after all. But the rubber was not over. I was glad that 
they did not see me, and I returned to my office filled 
with rage and determined to unmask Peck the first 
chance I should have, not because he was a trickster 
and a liar, but because he was applying his trickiness 
in the direction of Miss Leigh. 

That night the weather changed and it turned off 
cold. I remember it from a small circumstance. The 
wind appeared to me to have shifted when Miss Leigh’s 
carriage drove out of sight with Peck in it. I went home 
and had bad dreams. What was Peck doing with the 
Leighs? Could I have been mistaken in thinking he 
and McSheen had been talking of Mr. Leigh in their 
conference ? For some time there had been trouble on 
the street-car lines of the city and a number of small 
strikes had taken place on a system of lines running 
across the city and to some extent in competition with 
the West Line, which Mr. Leigh had an interest in. 
According to the press the West Line, which ran out 
into a new section, was growing steadily while the other 
line was falling back. Could it be that McSheen was 
endeavoring to secure possession of the West Line? 
This, too, had been intimated, and Canter, one of the 
richest men of the town, was said to be behind him. 
What should I do under the circumstances? Would 
Peck tell Miss Leigh any lies about me ? All these sug- 
gestions pestered me and, with the loss of Dix, kept me 
awake, so that next morning I was in rather a bad 
humor. 

In my walk through the poorer quarter on my way 

239 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

to my office I used to see a great deal of the children v 
and it struck me that one of the saddest effects of pov- 
erty — the dire poverty of the slum — was the debase- 
ment of the children. Cruelty appears to be the natural 
instinct of the young as they begin to gain in strength. 
But among the well-to-do and the well-brought-up of 
all classes it is kept in abeyance and is trained out. But 
in the class I speak of at a certain age it appears to 
flower out into absolute brutality. It was the chief 
drawback to my sojourn in this quarter, for I am very 
fond of children, and the effect of poverty on the chil- 
dren was the saddest part of my surroundings. To 
avoid the ruder element, I used to walk of a morning 
through the little back street where I had discovered that 
morning the little school for very small children, and I 
made the acquaintance of a number of the children who 
attended the school. One little girl in particular in- 
terested me. She was the poorest clad of any, but her 
cheeks were like apples and her chubby wrists were the 
worst chapped of all; and with her sometimes was a 
little crippled girl, who walked with a crutch, whom 
she generally led by the hand in the most motherly way, 
so small that it was a wonder how she could walk, much 
more study. 

My little girls and I got to that point of intimacy where 
they would talk to me, and Dix had made friends with 
them and used to walk beside them as we went along. 

The older girl’s first name was Janet, but she spoke 
with a lisp and I could not make out her name with a 
certainty. Her father had been out of work, she said, 
240 


RE-ENTER PECK 


but now was a driver, and her teacher was “Mith 
Thellen.” The little cripple’s name was “Sissy” — 
Sissy Talman. This was all the information I could 
get out of her. “Mith Thellen” was evidently her 
goddess. 

On the cool, crisp morning after the turn in the 
weather, I started out rather earlier than usual, intend- 
ing to hunt for Dix and also to look up Jeams. I bought 
a copy of the Trumpet and was astonished to read an 
account of trouble among the employees of the West 
Line, for I had not seen the least sign of it. The piece 
went on further to intimate that Mr. Leigh had been 
much embarrassed by his extension of his line out into 
a thinly populated district and that a strike, which was 
quite sure to come, might prove very disastrous to him. 
I somehow felt very angry at the reference to Mr. Leigh 
and was furious with myself for having written for the 
Trumpet. I walked around through the street where 
the school was, though without any definite idea what- 
ever, as it was too early for the children. As I passed 
by the school the door was wide open and I stopped and 
looked in. The fire was not yet made. The stove was 
open; the door of the cellar, opening outside, was also 
open, and at the moment a young woman — the teacher 
or some one else — was backing up the steps out of the 
cellar lugging a heavy coal-scuttle. One hand, and a 
very small one, was supporting her against the side of 
the wall, helping her push herself up. I stepped forward 
with a vague pity for any woman having to lift such a 
weight. 


241 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Won’t you let me help you?” I asked. 

“Thank you, I believe I can manage it.” And she 
pulled the scuttle to the top, where she planted it, and 
turned with quite an air of triumph. It was she! my 
young lady of the sunny house : Miss Leigh ! I had not 
recognized her at all. Her face was all aglow and her 
eyes were filled with light at a difficulty overcome. I 
do not know what my face showed; but unless it ex- 
pressed conflicting emotions, it belied my feelings. I 
was equally astonished, delighted and embarrassed. I 
hastened to say something which might put her at her 
ease and at the same time prove a plea for myself, and 
open the way to further conversation. 

“I was on my way to my law-office, and seeing a lady 
struggling with so heavy a burden, I had hoped I might 
have the privilege of assisting her as I should want any 
other gentleman to do to my sister in a similar case.” 
I meant if I had had a sister. 

She thanked me calmly; in fact, very calmly. 

“I do it every morning; but this morning, as it is the 
first cold weather, I piled it a little too high; that is all.” 
She looked toward the door and made a movement. 

I wanted to say I would gladly come and lift it for 
her every morning; that I could carry all her burdens 
for her. But I was almost afraid even to ask permission 
again to carry it that morning. As, however, she had 
given me a peg, I seized it. 

“Well, at least, let me carry it this morning,” I said, 
and without waiting for an answer or even venturing 
to look at her, I caught up the bucket and swung it into 
242 


RE-ENTER PECK 


the house, when seeing the sticks all laid in the stove, 
and wishing to do her further service, without asking 
her anything more, I poured half the scuttleful into the 
stove. 

“ I used to be able to make a fire, when I lived in my 
old home,” I said tentatively; then as I saw a smile 
coming into her face, I added: “But I’m afraid to try 
an exhibition of my skill after such boasting,” and with- 
out waiting further, I backed out, bringing with me only 
a confused apparition of an angel lifting a coal-scuttle. ' 

I do not remember how I reached my office that day, 
whether I walked the stone pavements through the 
prosaic streets or trod on rosy clouds. There were no 
prosaic streets for me that day. I wondered if the 
article I had seen in the paper had any foundation. 
Could Mr. Leigh have lost his fortune? Was this the 
reason she taught school ? I had observed how simply 
she was dressed, and I thrilled to think that I might be 
able to rescue her from this drudgery. 

The beggars who crossed my path that morning were 
fortunate. I gave them all my change, even relieving 
the necessities of several thirsty imposters who beset my 
way, declaring with unblushing, sodden faces that they 
had not had a mouthful for days. 

I walked past the little school-house that night and 
lingered at the closed gate, finding a charm in the spot. 
The little plain house had suddenly become a shrine. 
It seemed as if she might be hovering near. 

The next morning I passed through the same street, 
and peeped in at the open door. There she was, bend- 
243 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ing over the open stove in which she had already lighted 
her fire, little knowing of the flame she had kindled in 
my heart. How I cursed myself for being too late to 
meet her. And yet, perhaps, I should have been afraid 
to speak to her; for as she turned toward the door, I 
started on with pumping heart in quite a fright lest she 
should detect me looking in. 

I walked by her old home Sunday afternoon. Flowers 
bloomed at the windows. As I was turning away, Count 
Pushkin came out of the door and down the steps. As 
he turned away from the step his habitual simper 
changed into a scowl; and a furious joy came into my 
heart. Something had gone wrong with him within 
there. I wished I had been near enough to have crossed 
his path to smile in his face; but I was too distant, and 
he passed on with clenched fist and black brow. 

After this my regular walk was through the street of 
the baby-school, and when I was so fortunate as to meet 
Miss Leigh she bowed and smiled to me, though only as 
a passing acquaintance, whilst I on my part began to 
plan how I should secure an introduction to her. Her 
smile was sunshine enough for a day, but I wanted the 
right to bask in it and I meant to devise a plan. After 
what I had told Peck, I could not present my letter; I 
must find some other means. It came in an unexpected 
way, and through the last person I should have imagined 
as my sponsor. 


244 


XX 

MY FIRST CLIENT 

But to revert to the morning when I made Miss 
Leigh’s fire for her. I hunted for Dix all day, but 
without success, and was so busy about it that I did not 
have time to begin my search for Jeams. That evening, 
as it was raining hard, I treated myself to the unwonted 
luxury of a ride home on a street-car. The streets were 
greasy with a thick, black paste of mud, and the smoke 
was down on our heads in a dark slop. Like Petrarch, 
my thoughts were on Laura, and I was repining at the 
rain mainly because it prevented the possibility of a 
glimpse of Miss Leigh on the street: a chance I was 
ever on the watch for. 

I boarded an open car just after it started and just 
before it ran through a short subway. The next mo- 
ment a man who had run after the car sprang on the 
step beside me, and, losing his footing, he would probably 
have fallen and might have been crushed between the 
car and the edge of the tunnel, which we at that moment 
were entering, had I not had the good fortune, being on 
the outer seat, to catch him and hold him up. Even as it 
was, his coat was torn and my elbow was badly bruised 
against the pillar at the entrance. I, however, pulled 
him over across my knees and held him until we had 
gone through the subway, when I made room for him 
on the seat beside me. 


245 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“That was a close call, my friend,” I said. “Don’t 
try that sort of thing too often.” 

“It was, indeed — the closest I ever had, and I have 
had some pretty close ones before. If you had not 
caught me, I would have been in the morgue to-morrow 
morning.” 

This I rather repudiated, but as the sequel showed, 
the idea appeared to have become fixed in his mind. 
We had some little talk together and I discovered that, 
like myself, he had come out West to better his fortune, 
and as he was dressed very plainly, I assumed that, like 
myself, he had fallen on rather hard times, and I ex- 
pressed sympathy. “Where have I seen you before?” 
I asked him. 

“On the train once coming from the East.” 

“Oh! yes.” I remembered now. He was the man 
who knew things. 

“You know Mr. McSheen?” he asked irrelevantly. 

“Yes — slightly. I have an office in the same build- 
ing.” 

I wondered how he knew that I knew him. 

“Yes. Well, you want to look out for him. Don’t 
let him fool you. He’s deep. What’s that running 
down your sleeve ? Why, it’s blood ! Where did it come 
from ? ” He looked much concerned. 

“From my arm, I reckon. I hurt it a little back 
there, but it is nothing.” 

He refused to be satisfied with my explanation and 
insisted strongly on my getting off and going with him 
to see a doctor. I laughed at the idea. 

246 


MY FIRST CLIENT 


“Why, I haven’t any money to pay a doctor,” I said. 

“It won’t cost you a cent. He is a friend of mine 
and as good a surgeon as any in the city. He’s straight 
— knows his business. You come along.” 

So, finding that my sleeve was quite soaked with 
blood, I yielded and went with him to the office of his 
friend, a young doctor named Traumer, who lived in a 
part of the town bordering on the working people’s 
section, which, fortunately, was not far from where we 
got off the car. Also, fortunately, we found him at 
home. He was a slim young fellow with a quiet, self- 
assured manner and a clean-cut face, lighted by a pair 
of frank, blue eyes. 

“Doc,” said my conductor, “here’s a friend of mine 
who wants a little patching up.” 

“That’s the way with most friends of yours, Bill,” 
said the doctor, who had given me a single keen look. 
“What’s the matter with him? Shot? Or have the 
pickets been after him?” 

“No, he’s got his arm smashed saving a man’s life.” 

“What I Well, let’s have a look at it. He doesn’t 
look very bad.” He helped me off with my coat and, as 
he glanced at the sleeve, gave a little exclamation. 

“Hello!” 

“Whose life did he save?” he asked, as he was bind- 
ing up the arm. “That’s partly a mash.” 

“Mine.” 

“Oh! I see.” He went to work and soon had me 
bandaged up. “Well, he’s all right now. What were 
you doing?” he asked as he put on the last touches. 

247 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Jumping on a car.” 

“Ah I” The doctor was manifestly amused. “You 
observe that our friend is laconic ? ” he said to me. 

“What’s that?” asked the other. “Don’t prejudice 
him against me. He don’t know anything against me 
yet — and that’s more than some folks can say.” 

“Who was on that car that you were following?” 
asked the doctor, with a side glance at my friend. The 
latter did not change his expression a particle. 

“ Doc, did you ever hear what the parrot said to her- 
self after she had sicked the dog on, and the dog not 
seeing anything but her, jumped on her?” 

“No— what?” 

“‘Polly, you talk too d d much.’” 

The doctor chuckled and changed the subject. 
“What’s your labor-friend, Wringman, doing now? 
What did he come back here for ? ” 

“Same old thing — dodging work.” 

“ He seems to me to work other people pretty well.” 

The other nodded acquiescingly. 

“ He’s on a new line now. McSheen’s got him. Yes, 
he has,” as the doctor looked incredulous. 

“What’s he after? Who’s he working for?” 

“Same person — Coll McSheen. Pretty busy, too. 
Mr. Glave there knows him already.” 

“ Glave ! — Glave ! ” repeated the doctor. “ Where did 
I hear your name ? Oh, yes! Do you know a preacher 
named John Marvel!” 

“John Marvel! Why, yes. I went to college with 
him. I knew him well.” 


248 


MY FIRST CLIENT 


“You knew a good man then.” 

“ He is that,” said the other promptly. “ If there were 
more like him Fd be out of a job.” 

“You know Miss Leigh, too?” 

“What Miss Leigh?” My heart warmed at the 
name and I forgot all about Marvel. How did he know 
that I knew her? 

“‘The Angel of the Lost Children/ ” 

“‘The Angel — ’ ? Miss Eleanor Leigh ? ” Then as 
he nodded — “Slightly.” My heart was now quite 
warm. “Who called her so?” 

“She said she knew you. I look after some of her 
friends for her.” 

“Who called her the ‘Angel of the Lost Children* ?” 

“A friend of mine — Leo Wolff ert, who works in the 
slums — a writer. She’s always finding and helping 
some one who is lost, body or soul.” 

“Leo Wolff ert! Do you know him?” 

“I guess we all know him, don’t we, Doc?” put in 
the other man. “And so do some of the big ones.” 

“Rather.” 

“And the lady, too — she’s a good one, too,” he 
added. 

I was so much interested in this part of the conversa- 
tion that I forgot at the moment to ask the doctor where 
he had known John Marvel and Wolff ert. 

I, however, asked him what I owed him, and he re- 
plied, 

“Not a cent. Any of Langton’s friends here or John 
Marvel’s friends, or (after a pause) Miss Leigh’s friends 
249 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

may command me. I am only too glad to be able to 
serve them. It’s the only way I can help.” 

“That's what I told him,” said my friend, whose 
name I heard for the first time. “I told him you 
weren't one of these Jew doctors that appraise a man 
as soon as he puts his nose in the door and skin him 
clean.” 

“I am a Jew, but I hope I am not one of that 
kind.” 

“No; but there are plenty of 'em.” 

I came away feeling that I had made two friends well 
worth making. They were real men. 

When I parted from my friend he took out of his 
pocket-book a card. “ For my friends,” he said, as he 
handed it to me. When I got to the light I read : 

“Wm. Langton, Private Detective.” 

It was not until long afterward that I knew that the 
man he was following when he sprang on the car and 
I saved him was myself, and that I owed the atten- 
tion to my kinsman and to Mr. Leigh, to whom Peck 
had given a rather sad account of me. My kinsman 
had asked him to ascertain how I lived. 

I called on my new friend, Langton, earlier than he 
had expected. In my distress about Dix I consulted 
him the very next day and he undertook to get him 
back. I told him I had not a cent to pay him with at 
present, but some day I should have it and then 

“You'll never owe me a cent as long as you live,” he 
said. “ Besides, I’d like to find that dog. I remember 
him. He's a good one. You say you used the back 
250 


MY FIRST CLIENT 

stairway at times, opening on the alley near Mick 
Raffity’s?” 

“Yes.” 

He looked away out of the window with a placid ex- 
pression. 

“I wouldn’t go down that way too often at night,” he 
said presently. 

“Why?” 

“Oh! I don’t know. You might stumble and break 
your neck. One or two men have done it.” 

“Oh! I’ll be careful,” I laughed. “I’m pretty sure- 
footed.” 

“You need to be — there. You say your dog’s a good 
fighter?” 

“He’s a paladin. Can whip any dog I ever saw. I 
never fought him, but I had a negro boy who used to 
take him off till I stopped him.” 

“Well, I’ll find him — that is, I’ll find where he went.” 

I thanked him and strolled over across town to try to 
get a glimpse of the “Angel of the Lost Children.” I 
saw her in a carriage with another young girl, and as I 
gazed at her she suddenly turned her eyes and looked 
straight at me, quite as if she had expected to see me, 
and the smile she gave me, though only that which a 
pleasant thought wings, lighted my heart for a week. 

A day or two later my detective friend dropped into 
my office. 

“Well, I have found him.” His face showed that 
placid expression which, with him, meant deep satisfac- 
tion. “The police have him —are holding him in a case, 
251 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

but you can identify and get him. He was in the hands 
of a negro dog-stealer and they got him in a raid. They 
pulled one of the toughest joints in town when there 
was a fight going on and pinched a full load. The 
nigger was among them. He put up a pretty stiff fight 
and they had to hammer him good before they quieted 
him. He’ll go down for ninety days sure. He was a 
fighter, they said — butted men right and left.” 

“I’m glad they hammered him — you’re sure it’s 
Dix?” 

“Sure; he claimed the dog; said he’d raised him. 
But it didn’t go. I knew he’d stolen him because he 
said he knew you.” 

“Knew me — a negro? What did he say his name 

was?” 

“They told me — let me see — Professor Jeams — 
something.” 

“Not Woodson?” 

“Yes, that’s it.” 

“Well, for once in his life he told the truth. He 
sold me the dog. You say he’s in jail? I must go 
and get him out.” 

“You’ll find it hard work. Fighting the police is 
a serious crime in this city. A man had better steal, 
rob, or kill anybody else than fight an officer.” 

“Who has most pull down there?” 

“Well, Coll McSheen has considerable. He runs 
the police. He may be next Mayor.” 

I determined, of course, to go at once and see what 
I could do to get Jeams out of his trouble. I found 
252 


MY FIRST CLIENT 

him in the common ward among the toughest criminals 
in the jail — a massive and forbidding looking structure 
— to get into which appeared for a time almost as 
difficult as to get out. But on expressing my wish to 
be accorded an interview with him, I was referred from 
one official to another, until, with my back to the wall, 
I came to a heavy, bloated, ill-looking creature who 
went by the name of Sergeant Byle. I preferred my 
request to him. I might as well have undertaken to 
argue with the stone images which were rudely carved 
as Caryatides beside the entrance. He simply puffed 
his big black cigar in silence, shook his head, and 
looked away from me; and my urging had no other 
effect than to bring a snicker of amusement from a 
couple of dog-faced shysters who had entered and, 
with a nod to him, had sunk into greasy chairs. 

“Who do you know here?” 

A name suddenly occurred to me, and I used it. 

“Among others, I know Mr. McSheen,” and as I 
saw his countenance fall, I added, “and he is enough 
for the present.” I looked him sternly in the eye. 

He got up out of his seat and actually walked across 
the room, opened a cupboard and took out a key, then 
rang a bell. 

“Why didn’t you say you were a friend of his?” he 
asked surlily. “A friend of Mr. McSheen can see any 
one he wants here.” 

I have discovered that civility will answer with nine- 
tenths or even nineteen-twentieths of the world, but 
there is a class of intractable brutes who yield only to 
253 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

force and who are influenced only by fear, and of them 
was this sodden ruffian. He led the way now sub- 
serviently enough, growling from time to time some 
explanation, which I took to be his method of apologiz- 
ing. When, after going through a number of cor- 
ridors, which were fairly clean and well ventilated, 
we came at length to the ward where my unfortunate 
client was confined, the atmosphere was wholly differ- 
ent: hot and fetid and intolerable. The air struck 
me like a blast from some infernal region, and behind 
the grating which shut off the miscreants within from 
even the modified freedom of the outer court was a 
mass of humanity of all ages, foul enough in appearance 
to have come from hell. 

At the call of the turnkey, there was some interest 
manifested in their evil faces and some of them shouted 
back, repeating the name of Jim Woodson; some half 
derisively, others with more kindliness. At length, 
out of the mob emerged poor Jeams, but, like Lucifer, 
Oh, how changed! His head was bandaged with an 
old cloth, soiled and stained; his mien was dejected, 
and his face was swollen and bruised. At sight of me, 
however, he suddenly gave a cry, and springing for- 
ward tried to thrust his hands through the bars of the 
grating to grasp mine. “Lord, God!” he exclaimed. 
“If it ain’t de Captain. Glory be to God! Marse 
Hen, I knowed you’d come, if you jes’ heard ’bout me. 
Git me out of dis, fur de Lord’s sake. Dis is de wuss 
place I ever has been in in my life. Dey done beat me 
up and put handcuffs on me, and chain me, and fling 
254 


MY FIRST CLIENT 


me in de patrol-wagon, and lock me up and sweat me, 
and put me through the third degree, till I thought if 
de Lord didn't take mercy 'pon me, I would be gone 
for sho. Can't you git me out o' dis right away ?" 

I explained the impossibility of doing this imme- 
diately, but assured him that he would soon be gotten 
out and that I would look after his case and see that he 
got justice. 

“Yes, sir, that is what I want — jestice — I don't ax 
nothin' but jestice." 

“How did you get here?" I demanded. And even 
in his misery, I could not help being amused to see his 
countenance fall. 

“Dey fetched me here in de patrol- wagon," he said 
evasively. 

“I know that. I mean, for what?" 

“Well, dey say, Captain, dat I wus desorderly an' 
drunk, but you know I don' drink nothin'." 

“I know you do, you fool," I said, with some ex- 
asperation. “I have no doubt you were what they 
say, but what I mean is, where is Dix and how did you 
get hold of him?" 

“Well, you see, Marse Hen, it's dthis way," said 
Jeams falteringly. “I come here huntin' fur you and 
I couldn' fin' you anywheres, so then I got a place, and 
while I wus lookin' 'roun' fur you one day, I come 
’pon Dix, an' as he wus lost, jes' like you wus, an' he 
didn't know where you wus, an' you didn't know where 
he wus, I tuk him along to tek care of him till I could 
fin’ you." 


255 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“And incidentally to fight him?” I said. 

Again Jeams’s countenance fell. “No, sir, that 1 
didn’t,” he declared stoutly. “Does you think I’d 
fight dthat dog after what you tol’ me?” 

“Yes, I do. I know you did, so stop lying about it 
and tell me where he is, or I will leave you in here to 
rot till they send you down to the rockpile or the 
penitentiary.” 

“Yes, sir; yes, sir, I will. Fur God’s sake, don’ do 
dat, Marse Hen. Jes’ git me out o’ here an’ I will tell 
you everything; but I’ll swear I didn’t fight him ; he 
jes’ got into a fight so, and then jist as he hed licked 
de stuffin out of dat Barkeep Gallagin’s dog, them 

d d policemen come in an’ hammered me over the 

head because I didn’t want them to rake in de skads 
and tek Dix ’way from me.” 

I could not help laughing at his contradictions. 

“Well, where is he now?” 

“I’ll swear, Marse Hen, I don’ know. You ax the 
police. I jes’ know he ain’t in here, but dey knows 
where he is. I prays night and day no harm won’t 
happen to him, because dat dog can beat ary dog in 
this sinful town. I jes’ wish you had seen him.” 

As the turnkey was now showing signs of impatience, 
I cut Jeams short, thereby saving him the sin of more 
lies, and with a promise that I would get him bailed 
out if I could, I came away. 

The turnkey had assured me on the way that he 
would find and return me my dog, and was so sincere 
in his declaration that nothing would give him more 
256 


MY FIRST CLIENT 


pleasure than to do this for any friend of Mr. McSheen’s, 
that I made the concession of allowing him to use his 
efforts in this direction. But I heard nothing more of 
him. 

With the aid of my friend, the detective, I soon 
learned the names of the police officers who had 
arrested Jeams, and was enabled to get from them the 
particulars of the trouble which caused his arrest. 

It seemed that, by one of the strange and fortuitous 
circumstances which so often occur in life, Jeams had 
come across Dix just outside of the building in which 
was my law office, and being then in his glory, he had 
taken the dog into the bar-room of Mick Raffity, 
where he had on arrival in town secured a place, to 
see what chance there might be of making a match 
with Dix. The match was duly arranged and came 
off the following night in a resort not far from Raffity’s 
saloon, and Dix won the fight. Just at this moment, 
however, the police made a raid, pulled the place and 
arrested as many of the crowd as could not escape, 
and held on to as many of those as were without 
requisite influence to secure their prompt discharge. 
In the course of the operation, Jeams got soundly 
hammered, though I could not tell whether it was for 
being drunk or for engaging in a scrimmage with the 
police. Jeams declared privately that it was to pre- 
vent his taking down the money. 

When the trial came off, I had prepared myself fully, 
but I feel confident that nothing would have availed 
to secure Jeams’s acquittal except for two circum- 
257 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

stances: One was that I succeeded in enlisting the in- 
terest of Mr. McSheen, who for some reason of his 
own showed a disposition to be particularly civil and 
complacent toward me at that time — so civil indeed 
that I quite reproached myself for having conceived a 
dislike of him. Through his intervention, as I learned 
later, the most damaging witness against my client 
suddenly became exceedingly friendly to him and on 
the witness-stand failed to remember any circumstance 
of importance which could injure him, and finally de- 
clared his inability to identify him. 

The result was that Jeams was acquitted, and when 
he was so informed, he arose and made a speech to the 
Court and the Jury which would certainly fix him in 
their memory forever. In the course of it, he declared 
that I was the greatest lawyer that had ever lived in the 
world, and I had to stop him for fear, in his ebullient 
enthusiasm, he might add also that Dix was the greatest 
dog that ever lived. 


258 


XXI 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 

Still, I had not got Dix back, and I meant to find 
him if possible! It was several days before I could get 
on the trace of him, and when I undertook to get the 
dog I found an unexpected difficulty in the way. I was 
sent from one office to another until my patience was 
almost exhausted, and finally when I thought I had, at 
last, run him down, I was informed that the dog was 
dead. The gapped-tooth official, with a pewter badge 
on his breast as his only insignia of official rank, on my 
pressing the matter, gave me a circumstantial account 
of the manner in which the dog came to his death. He 
had attempted, he said, to get through the gate, and it 
had slammed to on him accidentally, and, being very 
heavy, had broken his neck. 

I had given Dix up for lost and was in a very low 
state of mind, in which Jeams sympathized with me 
deeply, though possibly for a different reason. He de- 
clared that we had “ lost a dog as could win a ten-dollar 
bill any day he could get a man to put it up.” 

“ Cap’n, you jes’ ought to V seen the way he chawed 
up that bar-keep Gallagin’s dog! I was jes’ gittin* 
ready to rake in de pile when dem perlice jumped in an' 
hammered me. We done los* dat dog, Cap’n — you an* 
I got to go to work,” he added with a rueful look. 

259 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

It did look so, indeed. A few days later, a letter 
from him announced that he had gotten a place and 
would call on me “ before long.” As he gave no ad- 
dress, I assumed that his “place” was in some bar- 
room, and I was much disturbed about him. One day, 
not long after, Dix dashed into my office and nearly ate 
me up in his joy. I really did not know until he came 
back how dear he was to me. It was as if he had risen 
from the dead. I took him up in my arms and hugged 
him as if I had been a boy. He wore a fine new collar 
with a monogram on it which I could not decipher. 
Next day, as I turned into the alley at the back of the 
building on which opened Mick Raffity’s saloon, with 
a view to running up to my office by the back way, 
I found Dix in the clutches of a man who was holding 
on to him, notwithstanding his effort to escape. He 
was a short, stout fellow with a surly face. At my ap- 
pearance Dix repeated the manoeuvres by which he had 
escaped from Jeams the day I left him behind me back 
East, and was soon at my side. 

I strode up to the man. 

“What are you doing with my dog?” I demanded 
angrily. 

“He’s Mr. McSheen’s dog.” 

“He’s nothing of the kind. He’s my dog and I 
brought him here with me.” 

“I guess I know whose dog he is,” he said, insolently. 
“He got him from Dick Gallagin.” 

Gallagin! That was the name of the man who had 
put up a dog to fight Dix. A light began to break on me. 

260 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 


“ I guess you don’t know anything of the kind, unless 
you know he’s mine. He never heard of Gallagin. 
I brought him here when I came and he was stolen from 
me not long ago and I’ve just got him back. Shut up, 
Dix!” for Dix was beginning to growl and was ready 
for war. 

The fellow mumbled something and satisfied me that 
he was laboring under a misapprehension, so I explained 
a little further, and he turned and went into Raffity’s 
saloon. Next day, however, there was a knock at my 
door, and before I could call to the person to come in, 
McSheen himself stood in the door. The knock itself 
was loud and insolent, and McSheen was glowering 
and manifestly ready for trouble. 

“I hear you have a dog here that belongs to me,” he 
began. 

“Well, you have heard wrong — I have not.” 

“Well — to my daughter. It is the same thing.” 

“No, I haven’t — a dog that belongs to your daugh- 
ter?” 

“Yes, a dog that belongs to my daughter. Where is 
he?” 

“I’m sure I don’t know. I wasn’t aware that you 
had a daughter, and I have no dog of hers or any one 
else — except my own.” 

“Oh! That don’t go, young man — trot him out.” 

At this moment, Dix walked out from under my desk 
where he had been lying, and standing beside me, gave 
a low, deep growl. 

“Why, that’s the dog now.” 

261 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I was angry, but I was quiet, and I got up and walked 
over toward him. 

“Tell me what you are talking about,” I said. 

“Fm talking about that dog. My daughter owns 
him and Fve come for him.” 

“Well, you can’t get this dog,” I said, “because he’s 
mine.” 

“Oh! he is, is he?” 

“Yes, I brought him here with me when I came. 
I’ve had him since he was a puppy.” 

“Oh! you did!” 

“Yes, I did. Go back there, Dix, and lie down!” 
for Dix, with the hair up on his broad back and a 
wicked look in his eye, was growling his low, ominous 
bass that meant war. At the word, however, he went 
back to his corner and lay down, his eye watchful and 
uneasy. His prompt obedience seemed to stagger Mr. 
McSheen, for he condescended to make his first attempt 
at an explanation. 

“Well, a man brought him and sold him to my 
daughter two months ago.” 

“I know — he stole him.” 

“I don’t know anything about that. She paid for 
him fair and square — $50.00, and she’s fond of the dog, 
and I want him.” 

“I’m sorry, for I can’t part with him.” 

“You’d sell him, I guess?” 

“No.” 

“If I put up enough ?” 

“No.” 


262 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 


“ Say, see here.” He put his hand in his pocket. 
“I helped you out about that nigger of yours, and I 
want the dog. I’ll give you $50.00 for the dog — more 
than he’s worth — and that makes one hundred he’s 
cost.” 

“He’s not for sale — I won’t sell him.” 

“Well, I’ll make it a hundred.” A hundred dollars! 
The money seemed a fortune to me; but I could not 
sell Dix. 

“No. I tell you the dog is not for sale. I won’t sell 
him.” 

“What is your price, anyhow ?” demanded McSheen. 
“I tell you I want the dog. I promised my daughter to 
get the dog back.” 

“Mr. McSheen, I have told you the dog is not for 
sale — I will not sell him at any price.” 

He suddenly flared up. 

“Oh! You won’t! Well, I’ll tell you that I’ll have 
that dog and you’ll sell him too.” 

“I will not.” 

“We’ll see. You think you’re a pretty big man, but 
I’ll show you who’s bigger in this town — you or Coll 
McSheen. I helped you once and you haven’t sense 
enough to appreciate it. You look out for me, young 
man.” He turned slowly with his scowling eye on me. 
“I will.” 

“You’d better. When I lay my hand on you, you’ll 
think an earthquake’s hit you.” 

“Well, get out of my office now,” I said. 

“Oh! I’m going now, but wait.” 

263 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

He walked out, and I was left with the knowledge 
that I had one powerful enemy. 

I was soon to know Mr. Collis McSheen better, as he 
was also to know me better. 

A few days after this I was walking along and about 
to enter my office when a man accosted me at the en- 
trance and asked if I could tell him of a good lawyer. 

I told him I was one myself, though I had the grace 
to add that there were many more, and I named several 
of the leading firms in the city. 

“Well, I guess you’ll do. I was looking for you. 
You are the one she sent me to,” he said doubtfully, 
when I had told him my name. He was a weather- 
beaten little Scotchman, very poor and hard up; but 
there was something in his air that dignified him. He 
had a definite aim, and a definite wrong to be righted. 
The story he told me was a pitiful one. He had been 
in this country several years and had a place in a loco- 
motive-shop somewhere East, and so long as he had 
had work, had saved money. But they “had been 
ordered out,” he said, and after waiting around finding 
that the strike had failed, he had come on here and had 
gotten a place in a boiler-shop, but they “had been 
ordered out” again, “ just as I got my wife and children 
on and was getting sort of fixed up,” he added. Then 
he had resigned from the union and had got another 
place, but a man he had had trouble with back East was 
“one of the big men up here now,” and he had had him 
turned out because he did not “belong to the union.” 
He was willing to join the union now, but “Wringman 
264 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 

had had him turned down.” Then he had gotten a 
place as a driver. But he had been ill and had lost his 
place, and since then he had not been able to get work, 
“ though the preacher had tried to help him.” He did 
not seem to complain of this loss of his place. 

“The wagon had to run,” he said, but he and his 
wife, too, had been ill, and the baby had died and the 
expenses of the burial had been “something.” He ap- 
peared to take it as a sort of ultimate decree not to be 
complained of — only stated. He mentioned it simply 
by way of explanation, and spoke as if it were a mere 
matter of Fate. And, indeed, to the poor, sickness often 
has the finality of Fate. During their illness they had 
sold nearly all their furniture to live on and pay rent. 
Now he was in arrears; his wife was in bed, his children 
sick, and his landlord had levied on his furniture that 
remained for the rent. At the last gasp he had come 
to see a lawyer. 

“I know I owe the rent,” he said, “but the beds won’t 
pay it and the loan company’s got all the rest.” 

I advised him that the property levied on was not 
subject to levy; but suggested his going to his landlord 
and laying the case before him. 

“If he has any bowels of compassion whatever — ” 
I began, but he interrupted me. 

“That’s what the preacher said.” But his landlord 
was “ the Argand Estate,” he added in a hopeless tone. 
He only knew the agent. He had been to him and so 
had the preacher; but he said he could do nothing — the 
rent must be paid — “ the Argand Estate had to be kept 
265 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

up, or it couldn’t do all the good it did ” — so he was 
going to turn them out next day. 

He had been to one or two lawyers, he said; but they 
wouldn’t take the case against the Argand Estate, and 
then the lady had sent him to me. 

“ What lady?” 

“The lady who teaches the little school — Miss Leigh 
— she teaches my Janet.” 

McNeil’s name had at first made no impression on 
me, but the mention of Miss Leigh, “the Argand Estate,” 
and of Wringman brought up an association. “Mc- 
Neil ? — McNeil ?” I said. “Did you have five children; 
and did your wife bring them on here some months ago 
— when the train was late, one day?” 

“Yes, sorr; that’s the way it was.” 

“Well, I will keep you in longer than to-morrow,” 
I said. And I did. But Justice is too expensive 
a luxury for the poor. “Law is law,” but it was 
made by landlords. I won his case for him and got 
his furniture released ; I scored the Argand agent, 
an icy-faced gentleman, named Gillis, “of high char- 
acter,” as the Argand counsel, Mr. McSheen, in- 
dignantly declared, and incidentally “the Argand Es- 
tate,” in terms which made me more reputation than 
I knew of at the time. 

The case was a reasonably simple one, for my client 
was entitled to a poor debtor’s exemption of a few 
household articles of primary need, and he had not half 
of what he could have claimed under his exemption. It 
appeared, however, that in the lease, which was in the 
266 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 


regular form used by the Argand Estate, all exemptions 
were waived, and also that it was the regular practice 
of the estate to enforce the waiver, and it was alleged at 
the trial that this practice had always been sustained. 
It was the fact that this was the customary lease and 
that a principle was involved which brought Mr. 
McSheen into the case, as he stated, for a client who 
was the largest landlord in the city. And it was the 
fact that Miss Leigh had recommended me and that 
McSheen was in the case that made me put forth all 
my powers on it. 

On the stand the Argand agent, Gillis, who, it ap- 
peared, had begun as an office-boy in the office of Mr. 
Argand and had then become his private secretary, 
from which he had risen to wealth and position, a fact 
I had learned from Kalender, was foolish enough to 
say that the case was gotten up by an unknown young 
lawyer out of spite against the Argand Estate and that 
it was simply an instance of “the eternal attacks on 
wealth”; that, in fact, there were “only two sides, the 
man with the dress-coat and the man without.” 

“You began poor. When did you change your 
coat?” I asked. 

The laugh was raised on him and he got angry. 
After that I had the case. I was unknown, but Gillis 
was better known than I thought, and the hardship on 
my client was too plain. I led him on into a tangle of 
admissions, tied him up and cross-examined him till 
the perspiration ran off his icy forehead. I got the jury 
and won the case. But, notwithstanding my success, 
267 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

my client was ruined. He was put out of the house, of 
course, and though I had saved for him his beds, eveiy 
article he possessed soon went for food. The laws 
established for the very protection of the poor destroy 
their credit and injure them. He could not give 
security for rent, and but for a fellow-workman named 
Simms taking him into his house, and the kindness of the 
man he had spoken of as “ the preacher/’ his children 
would have had to go to the workhouse or a worse place. 

McNeil’s case was the beginning of my practice, and 
in a little while I found myself counsel for many of the 
drivers in our section of the city. 

Among those whom this case brought me in touch 
with was a young lawyer, who, a little later, became the 
attorney for the government. My interest in him was 
quickened by the discovery that he was related to Mr. 
Leigh, a fact he mentioned somewhat irrelevantly. He 
was present during the trial and on its conclusion 
came up and congratulated me on my success against 
what he termed “the most powerful combination for 
evil in the city. They bid fair,” he said, “ to control not 
only the city, but the State, and are the more dangerous 
because they are entrenched behind the support of 
ignorant honesty. But you must look out for McSheen.” 
As he stood near Coll McSheen, I caught the latter’s 
eye fixed on us with that curious malevolent expression 
which cast a sort of mask over his face. 

I had not hunted up John Marvel after learning of 
his presence in the city, partly because I thought he 
268 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 


would not be congenial and partly because, having left 
several affectionate letters from him unanswered dur- 
ing my prosperity, I was ashamed to seek him now in 
my tribulation. But Fate decided for me. We think of 
our absent friend and lo! a letter from him is handed to 
us before we have forgotten the circumstance. We 
fancy that a man in the street is an acquaintance ; he 
comes nearer and we discover our mistake, only to meet 
the person we thought of, on the next corner. We cross 
seas and run into our next-door neighbor in a crowded 
thoroughfare. In fact, the instances of coincidence are 
so numerous and so strange that one can hardly repel 
the inference that there is some sort of law governing 
them. 

I indulged in this reflection when, a morning or two 
later, as I was recalling my carelessness in not looking 
up John Marvel and Wolff ert, there was a tap on the 
door and a spare, well-built, dark-bearded man, neatly 
but plainly dressed, walked in. His hat shaded his 
face, and partly concealed his eyes; but as he smiled 
and spoke, I recognized him. 

“ Wolffert! I was just thinking of you.” 

He looked much older than I expected, and than, 
I thought, I myself looked; his face was lined and his 
hair had a few strands of silver at the temples; his eyes 
were deeper than ever, and he appeared rather worn. 
But he had developed surprisingly since we had parted 
at College. His manner was full of energy. In fact, 
as he talked he almost blazed at times. And I was con- 
scious of a strange kind of power in him that attracted 
269 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and carried me along with him, even to the dulling of 
my judgment. He had been away, he said, and had 
only just returned, and had heard of my success in 
“defeating the Argand Estate Combination and 
he had come to congratulate me. It was the first 
victory any one had ever been able to win against 
them. 

“But I did not defeat any combination,” I said. 
“I only defeated Collis McSheen in his effort to take my 
client’s bed and turn him and his children out in the 
street without a blanket.” 

“There is the Combination, all the same,” he as- 
serted. “They have the Law and the Gospel both in 
the combine. They make and administer the one and 
then preach the other to bind on men’s shoulders bur- 
dens, grievous to be borne, that they themselves do not 
touch with so much as a finger.” 

“But I don’t understand,”.! persisted; for I saw 
that he labored under much suppressed feeling, and I 
wondered what had embittered him. “ Collis McSheen 
I know, for I have had some experience of him; and 
Gillis, the agent, was a cool proposition ; but the Ar- 
gand Estate ? Why, McSheen strung out a list of chari- 
ties that the Argand Estate supported that staggered 
me. I only could not understand why they support 
a man like McSheen.” 

“The Argand Estate support charities! Yes, a score 
of them — all listed — and every dollar is blood, wrung 
from the hearts and souls of others — and there are many 
Argands.” 


270 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 


“ How do you mean ?” For he was showing a sudden 
passion which I did not understand. He swept on 
without heeding my question. 

“Why, their houses are the worst in the city; their 
tenements the poorest for the rent charged; their 
manufactories the greatest sweatshops; their corporate 
enterprises all at the cost of the working-class, and, to 
crown it all, they sustain and support the worst villains 
in this city, who live on the bodies and souls of the 
ignorant and the wretched.” 

“Whom do you mean? I don’t understand.” 

“Why, do you suppose the Coll McSheens and 
Gillises and their kind could subsist unless the Argands 
and Capons of the Time supported them ? They have 
grown so bold now that they threaten even their social 
superiors — they must rule alone! They destroy all 
who do not surrender at discretion.” 

“Who? How?” I asked, as he paused, evidently 
following a train of reflection, while his eyes glowed. 

“Why, ah! even a man like — Mr. Leigh, who 
though the product of an erroneous system is, at least, 
a broad man and a just one.” 

“Is he? I do not know him. Tell me about him.” 
For I was suddenly interested. 

Then he told me of Mr. Leigh and his work in trying 
to secure better service for the public, better tenements 
— better conditions generally. 

“But they have defeated him,” he said bitterly. 
“They turned him out of his directorship — or, at 
least, he got out — and are fighting him at every turn, 
271 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

They will destroy him, if possible. They almost have 
him beat now. Well, it is nothing to me,” he added 
with a shrug of his shoulders and a sort of denial of 
the self-made suggestion. “He is but an individual 
victim of a rotten system that must go.” 

My mind had drifted to the conference which I had 
witnessed in McSheen’s office not long before, when 
suddenly Wolffert said, 

“Your old friend, Peck, appears to have gotten 
up. I judge he is very successful — after his kind.” 

“Yes, it would seem so,” I said dryly, with a sudden 
fleeting across my mind of a scene from the past, in 
which not Peck figured, but one who now bore his 
name; and a slightly acrid taste came in my mouth 
at the recollection. “Well, up or down, he is the 
same,” I added. 

“He is a serpent,” said Wolffert. “You remember 
how he tried to make us kill each other?” 

“Yes, and what a fool I made of myself.” 

“No, no. He was at the bottom of it. He used to 
come and tell me all the things you said and — didn’t 
say. He made a sore spot in my heart and kept it 
raw. He’s still the same — reptile.” 

“Have you seen him?” I asked. He leaned back 
and rested his eyes on me. 

“Yes, he took the trouble to hunt me up a day or 
two ago, and for some reason went over the whole 
thing again. What’s McSheen to him ?” 

“I shall break his neck some day, yet,” I observed 
quietly. 


272 


THE RESURRECTION OF DIX 

“You know I write,” he said explanatorily. “He 
wanted me to write something about you.” 

“About me?” 

“Yes.” 

“What a deep-dyed scoundrel he is!” 

“Yes, he wanted to enlist me on the McSheen side, 
but — ” his eyes twinkled. “Where do you go to 
church ? ” he suddenly asked me. 

I told him, and I thought he smiled possibly at what 
I feared was a little flush in my face. 

“To ‘St. Mammon’s’! Why don’t you go to hear 
John Marvel? He is the real thing.” 

“John Marvel? Where is he?” 

“ Not far from where you say you live. He preaches 
out there — to the poor.” 

“In a chapel?” I inquired. 

“Everywhere where he is,” said Wolffert, quietly. 

“What sort of a preacher is he?” 

“The best on earth, not with words, but with deeds. 
His life is his best sermon.” 

I told him frankly why I had not gone, though I was 
ashamed, for we had grown confidential in our talk. 
But Wolffert assured me that John Marvel would never 
think of anything but the happiness of meeting me again. 

“He is a friend whom God gives to a man once in 
his lifetime,” he said, as he took his leave. “Cherish 
such an one. His love surpasseth the love of women.” 

“Has he improved?” I asked. 

A little spark flashed in Wolffert’s eyes. “He did 
not need to improve. He has only ripened. God en- 
273 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

do wed him with a heart big enough to embrace all 
humanity — except — ” he added, with a twinkle in his 
eye, “the Jew.” 

“I do not believe that.” 

“By the way, I have a friend who tells me she has 
met you. Your dog appears to have made quite an 
impression on her.” 

“Who is she?” 

“Miss Leigh, the daughter of the gentleman we were 
talking about.” 

“Oh! yes — a fine girl — I think,” I said with a casual 
air — to conceal my real interest. 

“I should say so! She is the real thing,” he ex- 
claimed. “She told me you put out her fire for her. 
She teaches the waifs and strays.” 

“Put out her fire! Was ever such ingratitude! I 
made her fire for her. Tell me what she said.” 

But Wolffert was gone, with a smile on his face. 


xxn 

THE PREACHER 

So, “the preacher” whom my client, McNeil, and 
my poor neighbors talked of was no other than John 
Marvel ! I felt that he must have changed a good deal 
since I knew him. But decency, as well as curiosity, 
required that I go to see him. Accordingly, although 
I had of late gone to church only to see a certain wor- 
shipper, I one evening sauntered over toward the little 
rusty-looking chapel, where I understood he preached. 
To my surprise, the chapel was quite full, and to my 
far greater surprise, old John proved to be an inspiring 
preacher. Like Wolffert, he had developed. When he 
came to preach, though the sermon was mainly hortatory 
and what I should have expected of him, his earnestness 
and directness held his congregation, and I must say he 
was far more impressive than I should have imagined 
he could be. His sermon was as far from the cut- 
and-dried discourse I was used to hear, as life is from 
death. 

He spoke without notes and directly from his heart. 
His text, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are 
heavy-laden.” He made it out to be a positive promise 
of rest for the weary in body, mind and soul, given by 
One not only able to help, but longing to do so: a 
pitying Father, who saw His tired children struggling 
275 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

under their burdens and yearned toward them. The 
great Physician was reaching out His hands to them, 
longing to heal them, if they but received Him; if they 
but followed Him. To be converted meant to turn from 
what they knew to be evil and try to live as they felt He 
lived. He had come to bring the gospel to the poor. 
He had been poor — as poor as they. He knew their 
sorrows and privations and weakness; and their sins, 
however black they were. All He asked was that they 
trust Him, and try to follow Him, forgetting self and 
helping others. Do not be afraid to trust Him, or de- 
spair if He does not make Himself known to you. He 
is with you even until the end — and often as much when 
you do not feel it as when you do. 

God appeared very real to him, and also to his hear- 
ers, who hung on his words as simple as they were. I 
felt a seriousness which I had long been a stranger to. 
He appeared to be talking to me, and I set it down to 
tenderness for old John Marvel himself, rather than 
to his subject. 

When the service was over, he came down the aisle 
speaking to the congregation, many of whom he ap- 
peared to know by name, and whose concerns he also 
knew intimately. And as the children crowded around 
him with smiles of friendliness, I thought of the village 
preacher with the children following, “with endearing 
wile.” 

His words were always words of cheer. 

“ Ah I Mrs. Tams ! Your boy got his place, didn't he ? 

“Mrs. Williams, your little girl is all right again ? 

276 


THE PREACHER 


“Well, Mrs. McNeil” (to a rusty, thinly clad woman 
who sat with her back to me), “so your husband won his 
case, after all ? His lawyer was an old friend of mine.” 

I had sat far back, as the church was full when I 
entered, and was waiting for him to get through with 
his congregation before making myself known to him; 
so, though he was now quite close to me, he did not 
recognize me until I spoke to him. As I mentioned his 
name, he turned. 

“Why, Henry Glave!” Then he took me in his 
arms, bodily, and lifting me from the ground hugged 
me there before the entire remnant of his congregation 
who yet remained in the church. I never had a warmer 
greeting. I felt as if I were the prodigal son, and, al- 
though it was embarrassing, I was conscious that in- 
stant that he had lifted me out of my old life and taken 
me to his heart. It was as if he had set me down on a 
higher level in a better and purer atmosphere. 

I went home with him that night to his little room in 
a house even smaller and poorer than that in which I 
had my room — where he lived, as I found, because he 
knew the pittance he paid was a boon to the poor 
family who sublet the room. But as small and incon- 
venient as the room was, I felt that it was a haven for a 
tired and storm-tossed spirit, and the few books it con- 
tained gave it an air of being a home. Before I left it 
I was conscious that I was in a new phase of life. 
Something made me feel that John Marvel's room was 
not only a home but a sanctuary. 

We sat late that night and talked of many things, and 

277 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

though old John had not improved in quickness, I was 
surprised, when I came to think over our evening, how 
much he knew of people — poor people. It seemed to 
me that he lived nearer to them than possibly any one 
I had known. He had organized a sort of settlement 
among them, and his chief helpers were Wolff ert and a 
Catholic priest, a dear devoted old fellow, Father Tapp, 
whom I afterward met, who always spoke of John 
Marvel as his “Heretick brother,” and never without 
a smile in his eye. Here he helped the poor, the sick and 
the outcast; got places for those out of work, and en- 
couraged those who were despairing. I discovered that 
he was really trying to put into practical execution the 
lessons he taught out of the Bible, and though I told 
him he would soon come to grief doing that, he said he 
thought the command was too plain to be disobeyed. 
Did I suppose that the Master would have commanded, 
“Love your enemies,” and, “Turn the other cheek,” if 
He had not meant it ? “ Well,” I said, “ the Church goes 
for teaching that theoretically, I admit; but it does not 
do it in practice — I know of no body of men more ready 
to assert their rights, and which strikes back with more 
vehemence when assailed.” 

“Ah! but that is the weakness of poor, fallible, weak 
man,” he sighed. “ ‘ We know the good, but oft the ill 
pursue;’ if we could but live up to our ideals, then, 
indeed, we might have Christ’s kingdom to come. 
Suppose we could get all to obey the injunction, * Sell 
all thou hast and give to the poor,’ what a world we 
should have!” 


278 


THE PREACHER 


“It would be filled with paupers and dead beats,” 
I declared, scouting the idea. “Enterprise would 
cease, a dead stagnation would result, and the indus- 
trious and thrifty would be the prey of the worthless 
and the idle.” 

“Not if all men could attain the ideal.” 

“No, but there is just the rub; they cannot — you 
leave out human nature. Selfishness is ingrained in 
man — it has been the mainspring which has driven the 
race to advance.” 

He shook his head. “The grace of God is sufficient 
for all,” he said. “The mother-love has some part in 
the advance made, and that is not selfish. Thank God ! 
There are many rich noble men and women, who are not 
selfish and who do God’s service on earth out of sheer 
loving kindness, spend their money and themselves in 
His work.” 

“No doubt, but here in this city? ” 

“Yes, in this city — thousands of them. Why, where 
do we get the money from to run our place with ?” 

“From the Argand Estate?” I hazarded. 

“Yes, even from the Argand Estate we get some. 
But men like Mr. Leigh are those who support us and 
women like — ah — But beyond all those who give 
money are those who give themselves. They bring the 
spiritual blessing of their presence, and teach the true 
lesson of divine sympathy. One such person is worth 
many who only give money.” 

“Who, for instance?” 

“Why— -ahr—Miss Leigh— for example.” 

279 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I could scarcely believe my senses. Miss Leigh! 
“Do you know Miss Leigh? What Miss Leigh are 
you speaking of?” I hurriedly asked to cover my own 
confusion, for John had grown red and I knew in- 
stinctively that it was she — there could be but one. 

“Miss Eleanor Leigh — yes, I know her — she — ah — 
teaches in my Sunday-school.” John’s old trick of 
stammering had come back. 

Teaching in his Sunday-school! And I not know 
her! That instant John secured a new teacher. But 
he went on quickly, not divining the joy in my heart, 
or the pious resolve I was forming. “She is one of 
the good people who holds her wealth as a trust for the 
Master’s poor — she comes over every Sunday afternoon 
all the way from her home and teaches a class.” 

Next Sunday at three p. m. a hypocrite of my name 
sat on a bench in John’s little church, pretending to 
teach nine little ruffians whose only concern was their 
shoes which they continually measured with each other, 
while out of the corner of my eye I watched a slender 
figure bending, with what I thought wonderful grace, 
over a pew full of little girls on the other side of the 
church intent on their curls or bangs. 

The lesson brought in that bald-headed and some- 
what unfeeling prophet, who called forth from the 
wood the savage and voracious she-bears to devour the 
crowd of children who ran after him and made rude 
observations on his personal appearance, and before I 
was through, my sympathies had largely shifted from 
the unfortunate youngsters to the victim of their annoy- 
280 


THE PREACHER 


ance. Still I made up my mind to stick if John would 
let me, and the slim and flower-like teacher of the 
fidgety class across the aisle continued to attend. 

I dismissed my class rather abruptly, I fear, on ob- 
serving that the little girls had suddenly risen and were 
following their teacher toward the door with almost as 
much eagerness as I felt to escort her. When I dis- 
covered that she was only going to unite them with 
another class, it was too late to recall my pupils, who at 
the first opportunity had made for the door, almost as 
swiftly as though the she-bears were after them. 

When the Sunday-school broke up, the young lady 
waited around, and I took pains to go up and speak to 
her, and received a very gracious smile and word of 
appreciation at my efforts with the “ Botany Bay Class,” 
as my boys were termed, which quite rewarded me for 
my work. Her eyes, with their pleasant light, lit up 
the whole place for me. Just then John Marvel came 
out — and it was the first time I ever regretted his appear- 
ance. The smile she gave him and the cordiality of 
her manner filled me with sudden and unreasoning 
jealousy. It was evident that she had waited to see 
him, and old John’s face bore a look of such happiness 
that he almost looked handsome. As for her — as I 
came out I felt quite dazed. On the street whom should 
I meet but Wolff ert — “simply passing by,” but when 
I asked him to take a walk, he muttered something 
about having “to see John.” He was well dressed and 
looked unusually handsome. Yet when John appeared, 
still talking earnestly with Miss Leigh, I instantly saw 
281 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

by his face and the direction of his eye that the John 
he wanted to see wore an adorable hat and a quiet, but 
dainty tailor-made suit and had a face as lovely as a rose. 

I was in such a humor that I flung off down the street, 
swearing that every man I knew was in love with her, 
and it was not until ten o’clock that night, when I went 
to John’s — whither I was drawn by an irresistible de- 
sire to talk about her and find out how matters stood 
between them — and he told me that she had asked 
where I had gone, that I got over my temper. 

“Why, what made you run off so?” he inquired. 

“ When ?” I knew perfectly what he meant. 

“Immediately after we let out.” 

“My dear fellow, I was through, and besides I 
thought you had pleasanter company.” I said this 
with my eyes on his face to see him suddenly redden. 
But he answered with a naturalness which put me to 
shame. 

“Yes, Miss Leigh has been trying to get a place for a 
poor man — your client by the way — and then she was 
talking to me about a little entertainment for the chil- 
dren and their parents, too. She is always trying to do 
something for them. And she was sorry not to get a 
chance to speak further to you. She said you had 
helped her about her fire and she had never thanked you.” 

It is surprising how quickly the sun can burst from 
the thickest clouds for a man in love. I suddenly won- 
dered that Miss Leigh among her good works did not 
continually ask about me and send me messages. It 
made me so happy. 


282 


THE PREACHER 


“What became of Wolff ert?” I inquired. 

“I think he walked home with her. He had some- 
thing to talk with her about. They are great friends, 
you know. She helps Wolffert in his work. ,, 

“Bang!” went the clouds together again like a clap 
of thunder. The idea of Wolffert being in love with 
her! I could tolerate the thought of John Marvel being 
so, but Wolffert was such a handsome fellow, so clever 
and attractive, and so full of enthusiasm. It would 
never do. Why, she might easily enough imagine 
herself in love with him. I suddenly wondered if 
Wolffert was not the cause of her interest in settlement 
work. 

“Wolffert is very fond of her — I found him hanging 
around the door as we came out,” I hazarded. 

“Oh! yes, they are great friends. He is an inspira- 
tion to her, she says — and Wolffert thinks she is an 
angel — as she is. Why, if you knew the things she does 
and makes others do!” 

If John Marvel had known with what a red-hot iron 
he was searing my heart, he would have desisted; but 
good, blind soul, he was on his hobby and he went on 
at full speed, telling me what good deeds she had per- 
formed — how she had fetched him to the city; and how 
she had built up his church for him — had started and 
run his school for the waifs — coming over from her 
beautiful home in all weathers to make up the fire her- 
self and have the place v^arm and comfortable for the 
little ones — how she looked after the sick — organized 
charities for them and spent her money in their behalf. 
283 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“They call her the angel of the lost children,” he said, 
“and well they may.” 

“Who does?” I asked suspiciously, recalling the 
title. “ Wolff ert, I suppose?” 

“Why, all my people — I think Wolffert first chris- 
tened her so and they have taken it up.” 

“Confound Wolffert!” I thought. “ Wolff ert’s in 
love with her,” I said. 

“Wolffert — in love with her! Why!” I saw that I 
had suggested the idea for the first time — but it had 
found a lodgment in his mind. “Oh! no, he is not,’* he 
declared, but rather arguing than asserting it. “They 
are only great friends — they work together and have 
many things in common — Wolffert will never marry — 
he is wedded to his ideal.” 

“And her name is Eleanor Leigh — only he is not 
wedded to her yet.” And I added in my heart, “He 
will never be if I can beat him.” 

“Yes — certainly, in a way — as she is mine,” said 
John, still thinking. 

“And you are too!” I said. 

“I? In love with — ?” He did not mention her 
name. It may have been that he felt it too sacred. 
But he gave a sort of gasp. “The glow-worm may 
worship the star, but it is at a long distance, and it knows 
that it can never reach it.” 

I hope it may be forgiven to lovers not to have been 
frank with their rivals. His humility touched me. I 
wanted to tell John that I thought he might stand a 
chance, but I was not unselfish enough, as he would 
284 


THE PREACHER 


have been in my place. All I was brave enough to do 
was to say, “John, you are far above the glow-worm; 
you give far more light than you know, and the star 
knows and appreciates it.” 



285 


XXIII 

MRS. ARGAND 

I now began to plan how I was to meet my young 
lady on neutral and equal ground, for meet her I must. 
When I first met her I could have boldly introduced 
myself, for all my smutted face; now Love made me 
modest. When I met her, I scarcely dared to look into 
her eyes; I began to think of the letters of introduction 
I had, which I had thrown into my trunk. One of 
them was to Mrs. Argand, a lady whom I assumed to 
be the same lofty person I had seen mentioned in the 
papers as one of the leaders among the fashionable set, 
and also as one of the leaders in all public charitable 
work. It had, indeed, occurred to me to associate her 
vaguely, first with the private-car episode, and then 
with my poor client’s landlord, the Argand Estate; but 
the “ Argand Estate” appeared a wholly impersonal 
machine of steel; her reputation in the newspapers for 
charity disposed of this idea. Indeed, Wolffert had 
said that there were many Mrs. Argands in the city, 
and there were many Argands in the directory. 

I presented my letter and was invited to call on a 
certain day, some two weeks later. She lived in great 
style, in a ponderous mansion of unhewn stone piled 
up with prison-like massiveness, surrounded by exten- 
286 


MRS. ARGAND 


sive grounds, filled with carefully tended, formal flower- 
beds. A ponderous servant asked my name and, with 
eyes on vacancy, announced me loudly as “Mr. Glaze.” 
The hostess was well surrounded by callers. I recog- 
nized her the instant I entered as the large lady of the 
private car. Both she and her jewels were the same. 
Also I knew instantly that she was the “Argand Es- 
tate,” which I had scored so, and I was grateful to the 
servant for miscalling my name. Her sumptuous 
drawing-rooms were sprinkled with a handsomely 
dressed company who sailed in, smiled around, sat on 
the edge of chairs, chattered for some moments, grew 
pensive, uttered a few sentences, spread their wings, and 
sailed out with monotonous regularity and the solemn 
air of a duty performed. There was no conversation 
with the hostess — only, as I observed from my coign 
of vantage, an exchange of compliments and flattery. 

Most of the callers appeared either to be very inti- 
mate or not to know each other at all, and when they 
could not gain the ear of the hostess, they simply sat 
stiffly in their chairs and looked straight before them, 
or walked around and inspected the splendid bric-k-brac 
with something of an air of appraisement. 

I became so interested that, being unobserved my- 
self, I stayed some time observing them. I also had 
a vague hope that possibly Miss Leigh might appear. 
It was owing to my long visit that I was finally honored 
with my hostess’s attention. As she had taken no notice 
of me on my first entrance beyond a formal bow and an 
indifferent hand-shake, I had moved on and a moment 
287 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

later had gotten into conversation with a young girl — 
large, plump, and apparently, like myself, ready to talk 
to any one who came near, as she promptly opened a 
conversation with me, a step which, I may say, I was 
more than ready to take advantage of. I recognized 
her as the girl who had been talking to Count Pushkin 
the evening of the concert, and whom I had seen him 
leave for Miss Leigh. We were soon in the midst of a 
conversation in which I did the questioning and she did 
most of the talking and she threw considerable light on 
a number of the visitors, whom she divided into various 
classes characterized in a vernacular of her own. Some 
were “ frumps,” some were “ stiffs,” and some were 
“old soaks” — the latter appellation, as I gathered, not 
implying any special addiction to spirituous liquors on 
the part of those so characterized, but only indicating 
the young woman’s gauge of their merits. Still, she 
was amusing enough for a time, and appeared to be 
always ready to “die laughing” over everything. Like 
myself, she seemed rather inclined to keep her eye on 
the door, where I was watching for the possible appear- 
ance of the one who had brought me there. I was re- 
called from a slight straying of my mind from some 
story she was telling, by her saying: 

“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you?” 

Feeling rather flattered at the suggestion, and think- 
ing that I must have struck her as intellectual-look- 
ing, I admitted the fact and asked her why she 
thought so. 

“Oh! because they’re the only people who have 

288 


MRS. ARGAND 


nothing to do and attend teas — young lawyers. I have 
seen you walking on the street when I was driving by.” 

“Well, you know you looked busier than I; but you 
weren’t really,” I said. I was a little taken aback by 
her asking if I knew Count Pushkin. 

“Oh, yes,” I said. “I know him.” 

This manifestly made an impression. 

“What do you think of him?” 

“What do I think of him ? When I know you a little 
better, I will tell you,” I said. “ Doesn’t he attend teas ?” 

“Oh! yes, but then he is — he is something — a noble- 
man, you know.” 

“Do I?” 

“Yes. Didn’t you hear how last spring he stopped 
a runaway and was knocked down and dragged ever 
so far ? Why, his face was all bruises.” 

I could not help laughing at the recollection of 
Pushkin. 

“I saw that.” 

“Oh! did you? Do tell me about it. It was fine, 
wasn’t it? Don’t you think he’s lovely?” 

“Get him to tell you about it.” I was relieved at 
that moment at a chance to escape her. I saw my 
hostess talking to a middle-aged, overdressed, but hand- 
some woman whose face somehow haunted me with a 
reminiscence which I could not quite place, and as I 
happened to look in a mirror I saw they were talking 
of me, so I bowed to my young lady and moved on. 
The visitor asked who I was, and I could see the host- 
ess reply that she had not the slightest idea. She put 
289 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

up her lorgnon and scrutinized me attentively and then 
shook her head again. I walked over to where they sat. 

“We were just saying, Mr. — ah — ah — Laze, that one 
who undertakes to do a little for one’s fellow-beings finds 
very little encouragement.” She spoke almost plain- 
tively, looking first at me and then at her friend, who 
had been taking an inventory of the west side of the room 
and had not the slightest idea of what she was talking. 

“I am overrun with beggars,” she proceeded. 

Remembering her great reputation for charity, I 
thought this natural and suggested as much. She was 
pleased with my sympathy, and continued: 

“Why, they invade me even in the privacy of my 
home. Not long ago, a person called and, though I 
had given instructions to my butler to deny me to per- 
sons, unless he knew their business and I know them, 
this man, who was a preacher and should have known 
better, pushed himself in and actually got into my 
drawing-room when I was receiving some of my friends. 
As he saw me, of course I could not excuse myself, and 
do you know, he had the insolence, not only to dictate 
to me how I should spend my money, but actually how 
I should manage my affairs!” 

“Oh! dear, think of that!” sighed the other lady. 
“And you, of all people!” 

I admitted that this was extraordinary, and, mani- 
festly encouraged, Mrs. Argand swept on. 

“Why, he actually wanted me to forego my rents 
and let a person stay in one of my houses who would 
not pay his rent!” 


290 


MRS. ARGAND 


“Incredible!” 

“The man had had the insolence to hold on and 
actually force me to bring suit.” 

“Impossible!” 

I began to wish I were back in my office. At this 
moment, however, succor came from an unexpected 
source. 

“You know we have bought a house very near 
you?” interjected the blonde girl who had joined our 
group and suddenly broke in on our hostess’s mono- 
logue. 

“Ah! I should think you would feel rather lonely 
up here — and would miss all your old friends?” said 
Mrs. Argand sweetly, turning her eyes toward the 
door. The girl lifted her head and turned to the other 
lady. 

“Not at all. You know lots of people call at big 
houses, Mrs. Gillis, just because they are big,” said she, 
with a spark in her pale-blue eye, and I felt she was 
able to take care of herself. 

But Mrs. Argand did not appear to hear. She was 
looking over the heads of the rest of us with her eye on 
the door, when suddenly, as her servant in an unintelli- 
gible voice announced some one, her face lit up. 

“Ah! My dear Count! How do you do? It was so 
good of you to come.” 

I turned to look just as Pushkin brushed by me and, 
with a little rush between the ladies seated near me, 
bent over and seizing her hand, kissed it zealously, 
while he uttered his compliments. It manifestly made 
291 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

a deep impression on the company. I was sure he had 
seen me. The effect on the company was remarkable. 
The blonde girl moved around a little and stood in front 
of another lady who pressed slightly forward. 

“Count Pushkin!” muttered one lady to Mrs. Gillis, 
in an audible undertone. 

“Oh! I know him well.” She was evidently trying 
to catch the count’s eye to prove her intimate acquaint- 
ance; but Pushkin was too much engrossed with or 
by our hostess to see her — or else was too busy evading 
my eye. 

“Well, it’s all up with me,” I thought. “If I leave 
him here, my character’s gone forever.” 

“Such a beautiful custom,” murmured Mrs. Gillis’s 
friend. “I always like it.” 

“ Now, do sit down and have a cup of tea,” said our 
hostess. “I will make you a fresh cup.” She glanced 
at a chair across the room and then at me, and I almost 
thought she was going to ask me to bring the chair for 
the count! But she thought better of it. 

“Go and bring that chair and sit right here by me 
and let me know how you are.” 

“Here, take this seat,” said Mrs. Gillis, who was 
rising, but whose eyes were fast on Pushkin’s face. 

“Oh! must you be going?” asked Mrs. Argand. 
“Well, good-by — so glad you could come.” 

“Yes, I must go. How do you do, Count Pushkin ?” 

“Oh! ah! How do you do ?” said the count, turning 
with a start and a short bow. 

“I met you at the ball not long ago. Miss McSheen 
292 


MRS. ARGAND 


introduced me to you. Don’t you remember?” She 
glanced at the young lady who stood waiting. 

“Ah! Yes — certainly! To be sure — Miss McSheen 
— ah! yes, I remember.” 

Doubtless, he did; for at this juncture the young 
lady I had been talking to, stepped forward and claimed 
the attention of the count, who, I thought, looked a 
trifle bored. 

Feeling as if I were a mouse in a trap, I was about to 
try to escape when my intention was changed as sud- 
denly as by a miracle, and, indeed, Eleanor Leigh’s 
appearance at this moment seemed almost, if not quite, 
miraculous. 

She had been walking rapidly in the wind and her 
hair was a little blown about — not too much — for I 
hate frowsy hair — just enough to give precisely the 
right touch of “sweet neglect” and naturalness to a 
pretty and attractive girl. Her cheeks were glowing, 
her eyes sparkling, her face lighted with some resolu- 
tion which made it at once audacious and earnest, and 
as she came tripping into the room she suddenly trans- 
formed it by giving it something of reality which it had 
hitherto lacked. She appeared like spring coming after 
winter. She hurried up to her aunt (who, I must say, 
looked pleased to see her and gave Pushkin an arch 
glance which I did not fail to detect), and then, after 
a dutiful and hasty kiss, she pulled up a chair and 
dashed into the middle of the subject which filled her 
mind. She was so eager about it that she did not pay 
the least attention to Pushkin, who, with his heels close 
293 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

together, and his back almost turned on the other girl, 
who was rattling on at his ear, was bowing and grinning 
like a Japanese toy; and she did not even see me, 
where I stood a little retired. 

“My dear, here is Count Pushkin trying to speak to 
you,” said her aunt. “ Come here, Miss McSheen, and 
tell me what you have been doing.” She smiled at the 
blonde girl and indicated a vacated chair. 

But Miss McSheen saw the trap — she had no idea of 
relinquishing her prize, and Miss Leigh did not choose 
to try for a capture. 

“Howdydo, Count Pushkin,” she said over her 
shoulder, giving the smiling and bowing Pushkin only 
half a nod and less than half a glance. “Oh! aunt,” 
she proceeded, “I have such a favor to ask you. Oh, 
it's a most worthy object, I assure you — really worthy.” 

“How much is it?” inquired the older lady casually. 

“I don’t know yet. But wait — you must let me tell 
you about it, and you will see how good it is.” 

“My dear, I haven’t a cent to give to anything,” said 
her aunt. “I am quite strapped.” 

“I know, it’s the family disease,” said the girl lightly, 
and hurried on. “ I am trying to do some work among 
the poor.” 

“The poor!” exclaimed her aunt. “My dear, I am 
so tired of hearing about the poor, I don’t know what 
to do. I am one of the poor myself. My agent was 
here this morning and tells me that any number of my 
tenants are behind on their rents and several of my 
best tenants have given notice that on the expiration of 
294 


MRS. ARGAND 

their present terms, they want a reduction of their 
rents.” 

“I know,” said the girl. “They are out of work. 
They are all ordered out, or soon will be, papa says, 
poor things! I have been to-day to see a poor fam- 
ily ” 

“Out of work! Of course they are out of work! 
They won’t work, that’s why they are out — and now 
they are talking of a general strike! As if they hadn’t 
had strikes enough. I shall cut down my charities; 
that’s what I shall do.” 

“Oh! aunt, don’t do that!” exclaimed the girl. 
“They are so poor. If you could see a poor family I 
saw this morning. Why, they have nothing — nothing! 
They are literally starving.” 

“Well, they have themselves to thank, if they are.” 
She was now addressing the count, and two or three 
ladies seated near her on the edge of their chairs. 

“Very true!” sighed one of the latter. 

“I know,” said the count. “I haf read it in th’ pa- 
pers to-day t’at t’ey vill what you call strike. T’ey 
should be — vhat you call, put down.” 

“ Of course they should. It almost makes one despair 
of mankind,” chimed in Mrs. Gillis, who, though 
standing, could not tear herself away. As she stood 
buttoning at a glove, I suddenly recalled her standing 
at the foot of a flight of steps looking with cold eyes at 
a child’s funeral. 

“Yes, their ingratitude! It does, indeed,” said Mrs. 
Argand. “My agent — ah! your husband— -says I shall 
295 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

have to make repairs that will take up every bit of the 
rents of any number of my houses — and two of my 
largest warehouses. I have to repair them, of course. 
And then if this strike really comes, why, he says it will 
cost our city lines alone — oh! I don’t know how much 
money. But I hate to talk about money. It is so sor- 
did!” She sat back in her chair. 

“Yes, indeed,” assented the bejewelled lady she ad- 
dressed. “ I don’t even like to think about it. I would 
like just to be able to draw my cheque for whatever I 
want and never hear the word money — like you, Mrs. 
Argand. But one can’t do it,” she sighed. “Why, my 
mail ” 

“ Why don’t you do as I do ? ” demanded Mrs. Argand, 
who had no idea of having the conversation taken away 
from her in her own house. “My secretary opens all 
those letters and destroys them. I consider it a great 
impertinence for any one whom I don’t know to write 
to me, and, of course, I don’t acknowledge those letters. 
My agent ” 

“ My dear, we must go,” said the lady nearest her to 
her companion. As the two ladies swept out they 
stopped near me to look at a picture, and one of them 
said to the other: 

“Did you ever hear a more arrogant display in all 
your life? Her secretary! Her interest — her duties! 
As if we didn’t all have them!” 

“Yes, indeed. And her agent! That’s my husband ! ” 

“But I do think she was right about that man’s 
pushing in ” 


296 


MRS. ARGAND 


“Oh! yes, about that — she was, but she need not be 
parading her money before us. My husband made it 
for old Argand.” 

“My husband says the Argand Estate is vilely run, 
that they have the worst tenements in the city and 
charge the highest rents.” 

“Do you know that my husband is her — agent?” 

“Is he? Why, to be sure; but of course, she is 
responsible.” 

“Yes, she’s the cause of it.” 

“And they pay more for their franchises than any one 
else. Why, my husband says that Coll McSheen, who 
is the lawyer of the Argand Estate, is the greatest briber 
in this city. I suppose he’ll be buying a count next. 
I don’t see how your husband stands him. He’s so 
refined — such a ” 

“Well, they have to have business dealings together, 
you know.” 

“Yes. They say he just owns the council, and now 
he’s to be mayor.” 

“I know.” 

“Did you see that article in the paper about him 
and his methods, charging that he was untrue to every 
one in town, even the Canters and Argands who em- 
ployed him?” 

“Oh, didn’t I? I tell my husband he’d better be 
sure which side to take. One reason I came to-day 
was to see how she took it.” 

“So did I,” said her friend. “They say the first 
paper was written by a Jew. It was a scathing indict- 
297 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ment. It charged him with making a breach between 
Mr. Leigh and Mrs. Argand, and now with trying to 
ruin Mr. Leigh.” 

“And it was written by a Jew? Was it, indeed? I 
should like to meet him, shouldn’t you ? But, of course, 
we couldn’t invite him to our homes. Do you know 
anybody who might invite him to lunch and ask us to 
meet him? It would be so interesting to hear him 
talk.” 

So they passed out, and I went up to make my adieux 
to our hostess, secretly intending to remain longer if I 
could get a chance to talk to her niece, who was now 
presenting her petition to her, while the count, with his 
eye on her while he pretended to listen to Miss McSheen, 
stood by waiting like a cat at a mousehole. 

As I approached, Miss Leigh glanced up, and I flat- 
tered myself for weeks that it was not only surprise, but 
pleasure, that lighted up her face. 

“Why, how do you do?” she said, and I extended 
my hand, feeling as shy as I ever did in my life, but as 
though paradise were somewhere close at hand. 

“Where did you two know each other?” demanded 
her aunt, suspiciously, and I saw Pushkin’s face darken, 
even while the blonde girl rattled on at his ear. 

“Why, this is the gentleman who had the poor chil- 
dren on the train that day last spring. They are the 
same children I have been telling you about.” 

“Yes, but I did not know you had ever really met.” 

“That was not the only time I have had the good 
fortune to meet Miss Leigh,” I said. I wanted to add 
298 


MRS. ARGAND 

that I hoped to have yet better fortune hereafter; but 
I did not. 

Perhaps, it was to save me embarrassment that Miss 
Leigh said: “Mr. Glave and I teach in the same Sun- 
day-school/ ’ 

“Yes, about the she-bears,” I hazarded, thinking of 
one at the moment. 

Miss Leigh laughed. “I have been trying to help 
your little friends since; I am glad the she-bears did not 
devour them; I think they are in much more danger 
from the wolf at the door; in fact, it was about them 
that I came to see my aunt to-day.” 

I cursed my folly for not having carried out my inten- 
tion of going to look after them, and registered a vow to 
go often thereafter. 

“I was so glad you won their case for them,” she said 
in an undertone, moving over toward me, as several 
new visitors entered. A warm thrill ran all through my 
veins. “But how did you manage to get here?” she 
asked with twinkling eyes. “Does she know, or has 
she forgiven you?” 

“She doesn't know — at least, I haven’t told her.” 

“Well, I should like to be by — that is, in a balcony 
— when she finds out who you are.” 

“Do you think I was very — bold to come?” 

“Bold! Well, wait till she discovers who you are, 
Richard Cceur de Leon.” 

“Not I — you see that door? Well, you just 
watch me. I came for a particular reason that made 
me think it best to come — and a very good one,” 
299 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I added, and glanced at her and found her still 
smiling. 

“What was it?” She looked me full in the face. 

“I will tell you some time ” 

“No, now.” 

“No, next Sunday afternoon, if you will let me walk 
home with you after you have explained the she-bears.” 

She nodded “All right,” and I rose up into the blue 
sky. I almost thought I had wings. 

“My aunt is really a kind woman — I can do almost 
anything with her.” 

“Do you think that proves it?” I said. I wanted to 
say that I was that sort of a kind person myself, but I 
did not dare. 

“My father says she has a foible — she tbmks she is a 
wonderful business woman, because she can run up 
a column of figures correctly, and that she makes a 
great to-do over small things, and lets the big ones go. 
She would not take his advice; so he gave up trying to 
advise her and she relies on two men who flatter and 
deceive her.” 

“Yes.” 

“I don’t see how she can keep those two men, 
McSheen and Gillis, as her counsel and agent. But I 
suppose she found them there and does not like to 
change. My father says ” 

Just then Mrs. Argand, after a long scrutiny of us 
through her lorgnon, said rather sharply: 

“Eleanor!” 

Miss Leigh turned hastily and plunged into a sentence. 

300 


MRS. ARGAND 


“Aunt, you do not know how much good the little 
chapel you helped out in the East Side does. Mr. Mar — 
the preacher there gets places for poor people that are 
out of employment, and ” 

“I suppose he does, but save me from these preach- 
ers! Why, one of them came here the other day and 
would not be refused. He actually forced himself into 
my house. He had a poor family or something, he said, 
and he wanted me to undertake to support them. And 
when I came to find out, they were some of my own 
tenants who had positively refused to pay any rent, and 
had held on for months to one of my houses without 
paying me a penny.” She had evidently forgotten that 
she had just said this a moment before. “I happened 
to remember,” she added, “because my agent told me 
the man's name, O’Neil.” 

“McNeil!” exclaimed Miss Leigh. “Why, that is 
the name of my poor family!” She cut her eye over 
toward me with a quizzical sparkle in it. 

“What! Well, you need not come to me about that 
man. My counsel said he was one of the worst charac- 
ters he knew; a regular anarchist — one of these Irish — 
you know! And when I afterward tried to collect my 
rents, he got some upstart creature of a lawyer to try 
and defeat me, and actually did defraud me of my 
debt.” 

This was a centre shot for me, and I wondered what 
she would think if she ever found out who the upstart 
was. The perspiration began to start on my forehead. 
It was clear that I must get away. She was, however, 
301 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

in such a full sweep that I could not get in a word to say 
good-by. 

“But I soon gave Mr. Marble, or whatever his name 
was, a very different idea of the way he should behave 
when he came to see a lady. I let him know that I pre- 
ferred to manage my affairs and select my own objects 
of charity, without being dictated to by any one, and 
that I did not propose to help anarchists. And I soon 
gave Mr. McNeil to understand whom he had to deal 
with. I ordered him turned out at once — instantly.” 
She was now addressing me. 

She was so well satisfied with her position that I must 
have looked astonished, and I had not at first a word to 
say. This she took for acquiescence. 

“That was, perhaps, the greatest piece of insolence 
I ever knew!” she continued. “Don’t you think so?” 

“Well, no, I do not,” I said bluntly. 

For a moment or so her face was a perfect blank, 
then it was filled with amazement. Her whole person 
changed. Her head went up — her eyes flashed, her 
color deepened. 

“Oh!” she said. “Perhaps, we look at the matter 
from different standpoints?” rearing back more stiffly 
than ever. 

“Unquestionably, madam. I happen to know John 
Marvel, the gentleman who called on you, very well, 
and I know him to be one of the best men in the world. 
I know that he supported that poor family out of his 
own small income, and when they were turned out of 
their house, fed them until he could get the father some 
302 



“Perhaps you are the man yourself ?” she added insolently. 



. 

































































MRS. ARGAND 


work to do. He was not an anarchist, but a hard-work 
ing Scotchman, who had been ill and had lost his 
place.” 

“Oh!” she said — this time with renewed supercilious- 
ness, raising her lorgnon to observe some new-comers. 

“Perhaps, you happen also to know McNeil’s coun- 
sel — perhaps, you are the man yourself?” she added 
insolently. 

I bowed low. “I am.” 

The truth swept over her like a flood. Before she 
recovered, I bowed my adieux, of which, so far as I 
could see, she took no notice. She turned to Pushkin, as 
Miss Leigh, from behind a high-backed chair, held out 
her hand to me. “Well, poor McNeil’s done for now,” 
she said in an undertone. But as the latter smiled in 
my eyes, I did not care what her aunt said. 

“Ah! my dear Count, here is the tea at last,” I heard 
our hostess say, and then she added solicitously, “I 
have not seen you for so long. Why have you denied 
yourself to your friends? You have quite gotten over 
your accident of the spring? I read about it in the 
papers at the time. Such a noble thing to have stopped 
those horses. You must tell me about it. How did it 
happen ? ” 

I could not help turning to give Pushkin one look, 
and he hesitated and stammered. I came out filled 
with a new sense of what was meant by the curses 
against the Pharisees. As I was walking along I ran 
into Wolffert. 

“Ah! You are the very man,” he exclaimed. “It 

303 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

is Providence! I was just thinking of you, and you ran 
into my arms. It is Fate. ,, 

It did seem so. Mrs. Argand and her “dear count” 
had sickened me. Here, at least, was sincerity. But 
I wondered if he knew that Miss Leigh was within 
there. 


304 


XXIV 

WOLFFERT’S MISSION 

Wolffert naturally was somewhat surprised to see 
me come sallying forth from Mrs. Argand’s; for he 
knew what I had not known when I called there, that 
she was the real owner of “The Argand Estate.” 

I gave him an account of my interview with the lady. 

“I was wondering,” he said, laughing, “what you 
were doing in there after having beaten her in that suit. 
I thought you had taken your nerve with you. I was 
afraid you had fallen a victim to her blandishments.” 

“To whose?” 

“Mrs. Argand’s. She is the true Circe of the time, 
and her enchantment is one that only the strong can 
resist. She reaches men through their bellies.” 

“Oh!” I was thinking of quite another person, who 
alone could beguile me, and I was glad that he was not 
looking at me. 

He was, however, too full of another subject to notice 
me, and as we walked along, I told him of the old lady’s 
views about John Marvel. He suddenly launched out 
against her with a passion which I was scarcely pre- 
pared for, as much as I knew he loved John Marvel. 
Turning, he pointed fiercely back at the great prison- 
like mansion. 


305 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Do you see that big house ?” His long fingei 
shook slightly — an index of his feeling. 

“Yes.” 

“Every stone in it is laid in mortar cemented with 
the tears of widows and orphans, and the blood of 
countless victims of greed and oppression.” 

“Oh! nonsense! I have no brief for that old woman. 
I think she is an ignorant, arrogant, purse-proud, ill- 
bred old creature, spoiled by her wealth and the adula- 
tion that it has brought her from a society of syco- 
phants and parasites; but I do not believe that at heart 
she is bad.” She had had a good advocate defend 
her to me and I was quoting her. Wolffert was unap- 
peased. 

“That is it. She sets up to be the paragon of Gener- 
osity, the patron of Charity, the example of Kindness 
for all to follow. She never gave a cent in her life — but 
only a portion — a small portion of the money wrung 
from the hearts of others. Her fortune was laid in cor- 
ruption. Her old husband — I knew him! — he robbed 
every one, even his partners. He defrauded his bene- 
factor, Colonel Tipps, who made him, and robbed his 
heirs of their inheritance.” 

“How?” For I was much interested now. 

“By buying up their counsel, and inducing him to 
sell them out and making him his counsel. And now 
that old woman keeps him as her counsel and adviser, 
though he is the worst man in this city, guilty of every 
crime on the statute-books, sacred and profane.” 

“But she does not know that?” 

306 


WOLFFERTS MISSION 


“Not know it? Why doesn’t she know it? Because 
she shuts her doors to the men who do know it, and her 
ears to the cries of his victims. Doesn’t every one who 
cares to look into the crimes in this city know that Coll 
McSheen is the protector of Vice, and that he could not 
exist a day if the so-called good people got up and de- 
termined to abolish him — that he is the owner of the 
vilest houses in this city — the vilest because they are 
not so openly vile as some others? Isn’t she trying to 
sell her niece to an adventurer for a title, or a reprobate 
for his money ? ” 

“ Is she ? ” My blood suddenly began to boil, and I 
began to get a new insight into Wolffert's hostility. 

We had turned toward John Marvel’s. He appeared 
a sort of landmark to which to turn as we were dealing 
with serious subjects, and Wolffert was on his way there 
when I encountered him. As we walked along, he dis- 
closed a system of vice so widespread, so horrible and 
so repulsive that I hesitate to set it down. He de- 
clared that it extended over not only all the great 
cities of the country, but over all the great cities of all 
countries. 

I related the story the poor girl I had met that night 
on the street had told me, but I frankly asserted that 
I did not believe that it could be as general as he claimed. 

“'Smooth Ally,’ was it?” said Wolffert, who knew 
of her. “She is the smoothest and worst of them all, 
and she is protected by McSheen, who in turn is pro- 
tected by clients like The Argand Estate. What became 
of her ?” he demanded. 


307 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

"Why, I don’t know. I turned her over to the Sal- 
vationists — and — and I — rather left her to them.” 

I was beginning to feel somewhat meek under his 
scornful expression. 

"That is always the way,” he said. "We look after 
them for an hour and then drop them back into per- 
dition.” 

"But I placed her in good hands. That is their 
business.” 

" Their business ! Why is it not your business, too ? 
How can you shift the responsibility ? It is every one’s 
business. Listen ! ” He had been recently to southern 
Russia, where, he said, the system of scoundrelism he 
described had one of its prolific sources, and he gave 
figures of the numbers of victims — girls of his own race 
— gathered up throughout the provinces and shipped 
from Odessa and other ports, to other countries, in- 
cluding America, to startle one. 

"Time was when not a Jewess was to be found on 
the streets; but now!” He threw out his hand with 
a gesture of rage, and went on. He averred that many 
steamship officials combined to connive at the traffic, 
and that the criminals were shielded by powerful friends 
who were paid for their protection. 

"Why, there are in this city to-night,” he declared, 
"literally thousands of women who have, without any 
fault of theirs, but ignorance, vanity, and credulity, 
been drawn into and condemned to a life of vice and 
misery such as the mind staggers to believe.” 

"At least, if they are, they are in the main willing 

308 


WOLFFERT’S MISSION 


victims,” I argued. “There may be a few instances like 
the girl I saw, but for the most part they have done it 
of their own volition.” 

Wolffert turned on me with fire flaming in his deep 
eyes. “Of their own volition! What is their volition? 
In fact, most of them are not voluntary accomplices. 
But if they were — it is simple ignorance on their part, 
and is that any reason for their undergoing the tortures 
of the damned in this world, not to mention what your 
Church teaches of the next world ? Who brought them 
there — the man who deceived and betrayed them? 
Who acted on their weakness and drew them in? — 
their seducers? — the wretches who lure them to their 
destruction? — Not at all! Jail-birds and scoundrels 
as they are, deserving the gallows if any one does, which 
I do not think any one does — but you do — the ultimate 
miscreant is not even the Coll McSheens who protect it; 
but Society which permits it to go on unchecked when, 
by the least serious and sensible effort, it could pre- 
vent it.” 

“How?” I demanded. 

“How! By determining to prevent it and then 
organizing to do so. By simply being honest. Has it 
not broken up the institution of slavery — highway rob- 
bery, organized murder — except by itself and its mem- 
bers? Of course, it could prevent it if it set itself to 
do it. But it is so steeped in selfishness and hypocrisy 
that it has no mind to anything that interferes with its 
pleasures.” 

We had now reached John Marvel's, where we found 

309 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

John, just back from a visit to a poor girl who was ill, 
and his account only added fuel to Wolff ert’s flaming 
wrath. He was pacing up and down the floor, as small 
as it was, his face working, his eyes flashing, and sud- 
denly he let a light in on his ultimate motive. He 
launched out in a tirade against existing social condi- 
tions that exceeded anything I had ever heard. He 
declared that within hearing of the most opulent and 
extravagant class the world had ever known were the 
cries and groans of the most wretched; that the former 
shut their ears and their eyes to it, and, contenting them- 
selves with tossing a few pennies to a starving multitude, 
went on wallowing like swine in their own voluptuous- 
ness. Look at the most talked of young man in this 
city to-day, the bon partly the coveted of aspiring 
mothers. He lives a life to make a beast blush. He is 
a seducer of women, a denizen of brothels; a gambler 
in the life-blood of women and children, a fatted 
swine, yet he is the courted and petted of those who 
call themselves the best people! Faugh! it makes me 
sick.” 

This was to some extent satisfactory to me, for I de- 
tested Canter; but I wondered if Wolffert did not have 
the same reason for disliking him that I had. , 

“ There was never so selfish and hypocritical a so- 
ciety on earth,” he exclaimed, “ as this which now ex- 
ists. In times past, under the feudal system, there was 
apparently some reason for the existence of the so-called 
upper classes— the first castle built made necessary all 
the others — the chief, at least, protected the subjects 
3 IQ 


WOLFFERTS MISSION 


from the rapine of others, and he was always ready to 
imperil his life; but now — this! When they all claim to 
know, and do know much, they sit quiet in their own 
smug content like fatted swine, and let rapine, debauch- 
ery, and murder go on as it never has gone on in the 
last three hundred years.” 

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, im- 
pressed by his vehemence, but mystified by his furious 
indictment. He cooled down for a moment, and wiped 
his hand across his eyes. 

“ I am fresh from the scene of as brutal a butchery,” 
he said, “as has taken place within a thousand years. 
Israel is undergoing to-day the most extensive and 
complete persecution that has existed since the close of 
the crusades. No wonder the young women fall vic- 
tims to the scoundrels who offer them an asylum in a 
new land and lure them to their destruction with gifts 
of gold and words of peace. And this is what Society 
does — the virtue-boasting Society of the twentieth cen- 
tury! They speak of anarchy! — What they mean is a 
condition which disturbs the repose of the rich and 
powerful. There is anarchy now — the anarchy that 
consists of want of equal government for rich and poor 
alike. Look at John Marvel, here, preaching a gospel 
of universal love and acting it, too.” 

“ Wolff ert,” said Marvel, softly, “don’t. Leave me 
out — you know I do not — you are simply blinded by 
your affection for me •” 

But Wolffert swept on. “Yes, he does — if any man 
ever does — he lives for others — and what does he get ? 
311 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Shunted off by a fat, sleek, self-seeking priest, who 
speaks smooth things to a people who will have nothing 
else.” 

“Wolffert, you must not,” protested John; “I can- 
not allow you.” 

But Wolffert was in full tide. With a gesture he put 
John’s protest by. “ — To preach and teach the poor 
how to be patient — how to suffer in silence ” 

“Now, Leo,” said John, taking him by the shoul- 
ders, “I must stop you — you are just tired, excited — 
overworked. If they suffer patiently they are so much 
the better off- -their lot will be all the happier in the 
next world.” 

Wolffert sat down on the bed with a smile. “What 
are you going to do with such a man?” he said to me, 
with a despairing shrug. “And you know the curious 
thing is he believes it.” 

I went to my own room, feeling still like the prodigal, 
and that I had somehow gotten back home. But I had 
a deeper and more novel feeling. A new light had come 
to me, faintly, but still a light. What had I ever done 
except for myself ? Here were two men equally as poor 
as I, living the life of self-denial — one actually by choice, 
the other as willingly and uncomplainingly as though it 
were by choice, and both not only content, but happy. 
Why should not I enter the brotherhood? Here was 
something far higher and nobler than anything I had 
ever contemplated taking part in. What was it that 
withheld me ? Was it, I questioned myself, that I, with 
no association whatever in the town except the poor, 
312 


WOLFFERT'S MISSION 


yet belonged to the class that Wolffert crusaded against ? 
Was there something fundamentally wrong with so- 
ciety ? I could not enter freely into Wolffert’s rhapsody 
of hate for the oppressors, nor yet into John Marvel’s 
quiet, deep, and unreasoning love of Mankind. Yet I 
began to see dimly things I had never had a glimmer of 
before. 

The association with my old friends made life a 
wholly different thing for me, and I made through them 
many new friends. They were very poor and did not 
count for much in the world; but they were real peo- 
ple, and their life, simple and insignificant as it was, 
was real and without sham. I found, indeed, that one 
got much nearer to the poor than to the better class — 
their life was more natural; small things matter so 
much more to them. In fact, the smallest thing may 
be a great thing to a poor man. Also I found a kind- 
ness and generosity quite out of proportion to that of 
the well-to-do. However poor and destitute a man or 
a family might be there was always some one poorer 
and more destitute, and they gave with a generosity 
that was liberality, indeed. For they gave of their 
penury what was their living. Whatever the organ- 
ized charities may do, and they do much, the poor sup- 
port the poor and they rely on each other to an extent 
unknown among their more fortunate fellow-citizens. 
As the Egyptian always stops to lift another’s load, so 
here I found men always turning; in to lend their aid. 

Thus, gradually in the association of my friends who 
were working among the poor and helping to carry 
313 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

their burdens, I began to find a new field and to reap in 
it a content to which I had long been a stranger. Also 
life began to take on for me a wholly new significance; 
as a field of work in which a man might escape from 
the slavery of a selfish convention which cramped the 
soul, into a larger life where service to mankind was the 
same with service to God, a life where forms were of 
small import and where the Christian and the Jew 
worked shoulder to shoulder and walked hand in hand. 
How much of my new feeling was due to Miss Eleanor 
Leigh, I did not take the trouble to consider. 

“Father,” said Eleanor, that evening, “I have a poor 
man whom I want a place for, and I must have it.” 

Mr. Leigh smiled. “You generally do have. Is this 
one poorer than those others you have saddled on me?” 

“ Now don’t be a tease. Levity is not becoming in a 
man of your dignity. This man is very poor, indeed, 
and he has a houseful of children — and his wife ” 

“I know,” said Mr. Leigh, throwing up his hand 
with a gesture of appeal. “I surrender. They all 
have. What can this one do? Butts says every fore- 
man in the shops is complaining that we are filling up 
with a lot of men who don’t want to do anything and 
couldn’t do it if they did.” 

“Oh! This man is a fine workman. He is an expert 
machinist — has worked for years in boiler shops — has 
driven ” 

“Why is he out of a job if he is such a universal 
paragon ? Does he drink ? Remember, we can’t take 
in men who drink — a bucket of beer cost us twelve 
314 


WOLFFERT’S MISSION 

thousand dollars last year, not to mention the loss of 
two lives.” 

“He is as sober as a judge,” declared his daughter, 
solemnly. 

“What is it then? — Loafer?” 

“He lost his place where he lived before by a strike.” 

“A striker, is he! Well, please excuse me. I have 
a plenty of that sort now without going outside to drag 
them in.” 

“No — no — no — ” exclaimed Eleanor. “My! How 
you do talk! You won’t give me a chance to say a 
word!” 

“ I like that,” laughed her father. “Here I have been 
listening patiently to a catalogue of the virtues of a man 
I never heard of and simply asking questions, and as 
soon as I put in a pertinent one, away you go.” 

“Well, listen. You have heard of him. I’ll tell you 
who he is. You remember my telling you of the poor 
family that was on the train last year when I came back 
in Aunt Sophia’s car and we delayed the train ?” 

“I remember something about it. I never was sure 
as to the facts in the case. I only know that that 
paper contained a most infamous and lying attack 
on me ” 

“I know it — it was simply infamous — but this poor 
man had nothing to do with it. That was his family, 
and they came on to join him because he had gotten a 
place. But the Union turned him out because he didn’t 
belong to it, and then he wanted to join the Union, but 
the walking-delegate or something would not let him, 
315 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and now he has been out of work so long that they are 
simply starving.” 

‘‘You want some money, I suppose?” Mr. Leigh put 
his hand in his pocket. 

“No. I have helped him, but he isn’t a beggar — he 
wants work. He’s the real thing, Dad, and I feel rather 
responsible, because Aunt Sophia turned them out of 
the house they had rented and — though that young 
lawyer I told you of won his case for him and saved his 
1 furniture — the little bit he had — he has lost it all through 
the loan-sharks who eat up the poor. I tried to get 
Aunt Sophia to make her man, Gillis, let up on him, 
but she wouldn’t interfere.” 

“That’s strange, for she is not an unkind woman — 
she is only hard set in certain ways which she calls her 
principles.” 

“Yes, it was rather unfortunate. You see, Mr. Glave 
was there and Aunt Sophia! — you should have seen 
her.” 

She proceeded to give an account of Mrs. Argand’s 
discovery of my identity, and to take us both off. 

“They didn’t pay the rent, I suppose?” 

“ Yes. But it was not his fault — just their misfortune. 
His wife’s illness and being out of work and all — it just 
piled up on top of him. A man named Ring — some- 
thing — a walking-delegate whom he used to know back 
in the East, got down on him, and followed him up, and 
when he was about to get in the Union, he turned him 
down. And, Dad, you’ve just got to give him a place.” 

“Wringman, possibly,” said Mr. Leigh. “There’s 

316 


WOLFFERT’S MISSION 


a man of that name in the city who seems to be some- 
thing of a leader. He’s a henchman of Coll McSheen 
and does his dirty work for him. He has been trying to 
make trouble for us for some time. Send your man 
around to Butts to-morrow, and I’ll see what we can 
do for him.” 

Eleanor ran and flung her arms around her father’s 
neck. “Oh! Dad! If you only knew what a load you 
have lifted from my shoulders. I believe Heaven will 
bless you for this.” 

“I know Butts will,” said Mr. Leigh, kissing her. 
“How’s our friend, the Marvel, coming on?” 

“Dad, he’s a saint!” 

“So I have heard before,” said Mr. Leigh. “And 
that other one — how is he ?” 

“Which one?” 

“ Is there any other but the Jew ? I have not heard 
of another reforming saint.” 

“No, he is a sinner,” said Eleanor, laughing; and 
she went on to give an account of my episode with 
Pushkin, which she had learned from John Marvel, 
who, I may say, had done me more than justice in his 
relation of the matter. 

“So the count thought a team had run over him, did 
he?” 

“Yes, that’s what Mr. Marvel said.” 

She related a brief conversation which had taken 
place between her and Pushkin and Mrs. Argand, after 
I left, in which Pushkin had undertaken to express his 
opinion of me, and she had given him to understand 
317 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

that she knew the true facts in the matter of our col- 
lision. All of which I learned much later. 

“Well, I must say,” said Mr. Leigh, “your new 
friend appears to have ‘his nerve with him/ as you 
say.” 

“Dad, I never use slang,” said Miss Eleanor, se- 
verely. “I am glad you have promised to give poor 
McNeil a place, for, if you had not, I should have had 
to take him into the house.” 

Mr. Leigh laughed. 

“ I am glad, too, if that is the case. The last one you 
took in was a reformed drunkard, you said, and you 
know what happened to him and also to my wine.” 

“Yes, but this one is all right.” 

“Of course he is.” 

There was joy next day in one poor little household, 
for McNeil, who had been dragging along through the 
streets for days with a weight, the heaviest the poor 
have to bear, bowing him down — want of work — came 
into his little bare room where his wife and children 
huddled over an almost empty stove, with a new step 
and a fresh note in his voice. He had gotten a place 
and it meant life to him and to those he loved. 


318 


XXV 

FATE LEADS 


One evening I called at Mrs. Kale's to see my two 
old ladies of the bundles and also Mrs. Kale, for whom 
I had conceived a high regard on account of her kind- 
ness to the former as well as to myself, and in the course 
of my visit Miss Pansy gave me, for not the first time, 
an account of the way in which they had been reduced 
from what they thought affluence to what she very 
truly called “straitened circumstances." I confess that 
I was rather bored by her relation, which was given 
with much circumlocution until she mentioned casually 
that Miss Leigh had tried to interest her father in their 
case, but he had said it was too late to do anything. 
The mention of her name instantly made me alert. If 
she was interested, I was interested also. I began to 
ask questions, and soon had their whole story as well 
as she could give it. 

“Why, it may or may not be too late," I said. “It is 
certainly very long ago, and the chances of being able 
to do anything now are very remote; but if there was 
a fraud, and it could be proved, it would not be too late 
— or, at least, might not be." 

“Oh! Do you think that you could recover any- 
thing for us? Mr. McSheen said nothing could be 
319 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

gotten out of it, and we paid him — a great deal,” she 
sighed, “ — everything we had in the world, almost.” 

“I do not say that, but if there was a fraud, and it 
could be proved, it might not be too late.” 

The name of McSheen had given me a suspicion that 
all might not be straight. Nothing could be if he was 
connected with it. I recalled what Wolffert had 
told me of McSheen’s selling out. Moreover, her story 
had unconsciously been a moving one. They had evi- 
dently been hardly used and, I believed, defrauded. 
So, when she pressed me, and promised if she were 
ever able to do so she “would reward me generously,” 
as if, poor soul, she could ever reward any one save with 
her prayers, I undertook to look into the matter for 
them, and I began next day. 

I will not go into the steps I took to reach my ends, 
nor the difficulties I encountered, which grew as I pro- 
gressed in my investigation until they appeared almost 
insurmountable; but finally I struck a lead which at 
last led me to a conviction that if I could but secure the 
evidence I could establish such a case of fraud for my 
two old clients as would give promise of a fair chance 
to recover for them, at least, a part of their patrimony. 
The difficulty, or one of them — for they were innu- 
merable — was that to establish their case it was neces- 
sary to prove that several men who had stood high in 
the public esteem, had been guilty of such disregard of 
the rights of those to whom they stood in the relation 
of trustees that it would be held a fraud. I was satis- 
fied that had McSheen taken proper steps to secure his 
320 


FATE LEADS 


clients’ rights, he might have succeeded and further, that 
he had been bought off, but the difficulty was to prove it. 

However, I determined to make the effort to get the 
proof and my zeal was suddenly quickened. 

I had now begun to watch for my young lady wher- 
ever I went, and it was astonishing how my quickened 
senses enabled me to find her in the most crowded 
thoroughfare, or in strange and out-of-the-way places. 
It was almost as if there were some secret power which 
drew us together. And when I was blessed to meet her 
the day was always one of sunshine for me, however 
heavy lowered the dim clouds. 

The next afternoon our meeting was so unexpected 
that I could not but set it down to the ruling of a higher 
power. I had gone out to see how my McNeil clients 
were coming on, having doubtless some latent hope 
that I might find her there; but she had not been there 
for several days. They had heard of her, however, for 
she had got the husband and father a place and that 
made sunshine in the wretched little hovel, as bare as it 
was. I was touched by their gratitude, and after tak- 
ing note of the wretched poverty of the family, and 
promising that I would try to get the mother some sort 
of work, I strolled on. I had not gone far when I sud- 
denly came on her face to face. The smile that came 
into her eyes must have brought my soul into my face. 

Love is the true miracle-worker. It can change the 
most prosaic region into a scene of romance. At sight 
of Eleanor Leigh’s slim figure the dull street suddenly 
became an enchanted land. 

321 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Well, we appear fated to meet,” she said with a 
smile and intonation that my heart feasted on for days. 
She little knew how assiduously I had played Fate 
during these past weeks, haunting the streets near her 
home or those places which she blessed with her pres- 
ence. This meeting, however, was purely accidental, 
unless it be true, as I sometimes almost incline to think, 
that some occult power which we cannot understand 
rules all our actions and guides our footsteps toward 
those we love supremely. John Marvel always called 
it Providence. 

“Well, may I not see you home?” I asked, and with- 
out waiting for her consent, I took it for granted and 
turned back with her, though she protested against 
taking me out of my way. I had indeed some difficulty 
in not saying then and there, “My way is where you 
are.” 

She had been to see one of her scholars who was 
sick, “the little cripple, whom you know,” she said. 
I suddenly began to think cripples the most interesting 
of mortals. She gave me, as we strolled along, an 
account of her first acquaintance with her and her 
mother; and of how John Marvel had found out their 
condition and helped them. Then she had tried to help 
them a little, and had gotten the mother to let her have 
the little girl at her school. 

“Now they are doing a little better,” she said, “but 
you never saw such wretchedness. The woman had 
given up everything in the world to try to save her hus- 
band, and such a wretched hole as they lived in you 
322 


FATE LEADS 


couldn’t imagine. They did not have a single article of 
furniture in their room when I — when Mr. Marvel first 
found them. It had all gone to the Loan Company — 
they were starving.” 

John Marvel had a nose like a pointer for all who 
were desolate and oppressed. How he discovered them, 
except, as Eleanor Leigh said, by some sort of a sixth 
sense like that of the homing pigeon, surpasses my 
comprehension. It is enough that he found and fur- 
rowed them out. Thus, he had learned that a little 
girl, a child of a noted criminal, had been ill-treated by 
the children at a public school and that her mother and 
herself were almost starving, and had hastened at once 
to find her. Like a hunted animal she had gone and 
hidden herself in what was scarcely better than a den. 
Here John Marvel found her, in a wretched cellar, the 
mother ill on a pallet of straw, and both starving, 
without food or fire. The door was barred, as was 
her heart, and it was long before any answer came to 
the oft-repeated knock. But at last his patience was 
rewarded. The door opened a bare inch, and a fierce 
black eye in a haggard white face peered at him through 
the chink. 

“What do you want?” 

“To help you.” 

The door opened slowly and John Marvel entered 
an abode which he said to me afterward he was glad for 
the first time in his life to be so near-sighted as not to be 
able to see. A pallet of rags lay in a corner, and on a 
box crouched, rather than sat, a little girl with a broken 
323 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

crutch by her side, her eyes fastened on the newcomer 
with a gaze of half bewilderment. It was some time be- 
fore John Marvel could get anything out of the woman, 
but he held a key which at last unlocks every heart, — 
a divine and penetrating sympathy. And presently the 
woman told him her story. Her husband was a fugi- 
tive from justice. She did not say so, but only that he 
had had to leave the city because the police were after 
him. His friends had turned against him and against 
her. She did not know where her husband was, but be- 
lieved he had left the country, unless, indeed, he were 
dead. She was waiting to hear from him, and mean- 
time everything which she had had gone, and now, 
though she did not say so, they were starving. To 
relieve them was as instinctive with John Marvel as to 
breathe. The next step was to help them permanently. 
It was hard to do, because the woman was at bay and 
was as suspicious as a she-wolf, and the child was as 
secretive as a young cub. John turned to one, how- 
ever, who he believed, and with good reason, knew how 
to do things which were lost to his dull comprehension. 

The following day into that den walked Eleanor 
Leigh, and it was to visit this woman and her child that 
she was going the morning I met her coming down the 
steps, when she dropped her violets on the sidewalk. 
It was a hard task which John Marvel had set her, for 
as some women may yield to women rather than to 
men, so there are some who are harder to reach by the 
former than by the latter, and the lot of Red Talman’s 
wife had separated her from her sex and turned her 
324 


FATE LEADS 


into a state where she felt that all women were against 
her. But Eleanor Leigh was equal to the task; having 
gained admission through the open sesame of John 
Marvel’s name she first applied herself to win the child. 
Seating herself on the box she began to play with the 
little girl and to show her the toys she had brought, — 
toys which the child had never seen before. It was not 
long before the little thing was in her lap and then the 
woman had been won. When Eleanor Leigh came 
away everything had been arranged, and the following 
night Red Talman’s wife and child moved to another 
quarter of the town, to a clean little room not far from the 
small school on the way to which I first met the little waif. 

“But you don’t go into such places by yourself? 
I said to her when she had told me their story. “Why, 
it might cost you your life-.” 

“Oh, no! No one is going to trouble me. I am not 
afraid.” 

“Well, it is not safe,” I protested. “I wish you 
wouldn’t do it.” It was the first time I had ever ven- 
tured to assume such an attitude toward her. “ I don’t 
care how brave you are, it is not safe.” 

“Oh! I am not brave at all. In fact, I am an awful 
coward. I am afraid of mice and all such ferocious 
beasts — and as to a spider — why, little Miss Muffet 
was a heroine to me.” 

“I know,” I nodded, watching the play of expression 
in her eyes with secret delight. 

“ But I am not afraid of people. They are about the 
only things I am not afraid of. They appear to me so 
325 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

pitiful in their efforts. Why should one fear them? 
Besides, I don’t think about myself when I am doing 
anything — only about what I am doing.” 

“What is the name of your little prot6g6e’s father — 
the criminal ? ” I asked. 

“Talman — they call him ‘Red Talman.’ He’s quite 
noted, I believe.” 

“‘Red Talman!’ Why, he is one of the most noted 
criminals in the country. I remember reading of his 
escape some time ago. He was in for a long term. It 
was said no prison could hold him.” 

“Yes, he has escaped,” she said demurely. 

I once more began to protest against her going about 
such places by herself as she had described, but she 
only laughed at me for my earnestness. She had also 
been to see the Miss Tippses, she said, and she gave an 
amusing and, at the same time, a pathetic account of 
Miss Pansy’s brave attempt to cover up their poverty. 

“It is hard to do anything for them. One can help 
the Talmans; but it is almost impossible to help the 
decayed gentlefolk. One has to be so careful not to 
appear to know her pathetic little deceits, and I find 
myself bowing and accepting all her little devices and 
transparent deceptions of how comfortable they are, 
when I know that maybe she may be faint with hunger 
at that very time.” 

I wondered if she knew their story. But she suddenly 
said: 

“Tell me about their case. I do trust you can 
win it.” 


326 


FATE LEADS 


I was only too ready to tell her anything. So, as 
we walked along I told her all I knew or nearly 
all. 

“Oh! you must win it! To think that such robbery 
can be committed ! There must be some redress ! Who 
were the wretches who robbed them? They ought to 
be shown up if they were in their graves! I hate to know 
things and not know the person who committed them.” 
As she turned to me with flashing eyes, I felt a great 
desire to tell her but how could I do so ? 

“Tell me. Do you know them?” 

“Yes — some of them.” 

“Well, tell me their names.” 

“ Why do you wish to know ? ” I hesitated. 

“Because I do. Isn’t that sufficient?” 

I wanted to say yes, but still I hesitated. 

“Was it anybody — I know?” 

“Why ” 

“I must know.” Her eyes were on my face and I 
yielded. 

“Mr. Argand was one of the Directors — in fact, was 
the president of the road— but I have no direct proof— 
yet.” 

“Do you mean my aunt’s husband?” 

I nodded. 

She turned her face away. 

“I ought not to have told you,” I added. 

“Oh! yes, you ought. I would have wanted to know 
if it had been my father. I have the dearest father in 
the world. You do not know how good and kind he is, 
327 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and how generous to every one. He has almost ruined 
himself working for others.” 

I said I had no doubt he was all she said; but my 
heart sank as I recalled my part in the paper I had 
written about him. I knew I must tell her some time, 
but I hesitated to do it now. I began to talk about 
myself, a subject I am rather fond of, but on this occa- 
sion I had possibly more excuse than usual. 

“My mother also died when I was a child,” she 
said, sighing, as I related the loss of mine and said that 
I was just beginning to realize what it was. It appeared 
to draw us nearer together. I was conscious of her 
sympathy, and under its influence I went on and told 
her the wretched story of my life, my folly and my 
failure, and my final resolve to begin anew and be 
something worth while. I did not spare myself and I 
made no concealments. I felt her sympathy and it was 
as sweet to me as ever was grace to a famished soul. I 
had been so long alone that it seemed to unlock Heaven. 

“I believe you will succeed,” she said, turning and 
looking me in the face. 

A sudden fire sprang into my brain and throbbed in 
my heart. “If you will say that to me and mean it, 
I will.” 

“I do believe it. Of course, I mean it.” She stopped 
and looked me again full in the face, and her eyes seemed 
to me to hold the depths of Heaven: deep, calm, con- 
fiding, and untroubled as a child’s. They stirred me 
deeply. Why should I not declare myself! She was, 
since her father’s embarrassment, of which I had read, 
328 


FATE LEADS 


no longer beyond my reach. Did I not hold the future 
in fee? Why might not I win her? 

For some time we drifted along, talking about noth- 
ing of moment, skirting the shore of the charmed un- 
known, deep within which lay the mystery of that which 
we both possibly meant, however indefinitely, to ex- 
plore. Then we struck a little further in; and began 
to exchange experiences — first our early impressions of 
John Marvel and Wolffert. It was then that she told 
me of her coming to know John Marvel in the country 
that night during the epidemic. She did not tell of her 
part in the relief of the sick; but it was unnecessary. 
John Marvel had already told me that. It was John 
himself, with his wonderful unselfishness and gift of 
self-abnegation, of whom she spoke, and Wolffert with 
his ideal ever kept in sight. 

“What turned you to philanthropy?” I asked with a 
shade of irony in my voice more marked than I had 
intended. If she was conscious of it she took no notice 
of it beyond saying, 

“ If you mean the poor, pitiful little bit of work I do 
trying to help Mr. Marvel and Mr. Wolffert among the 
poor — John Marvel did, and Mr. Wolffert made the 
duty clear. They are the complement of each other, 
Jew and Gentile, and if all men were like them there 
would be no divisions.” 

I expressed my wonder that she should have kept on, 
and not merely contented herself with giving money or 
helping for that one occasion. Sudden converts gen- 
erally relapse. 


329 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Oh! it was not any conversion. It gave life a new 
interest for me. I was bored to death by the life I had 
been leading since I came out. It was one continuous 
round of lunches, dinners, parties, dances, soirees, till 
I felt as if I were a wooden steed in a merry-go-round, 
wound up and wearing out. You see I had , in a way, 
always been ‘out/ I used to go about with my father, 
and sit at the table and hear him and his friends — men 
friends — for I did not come to the table when ladies 
were there, till I was fifteen — talk about all sorts of 
things, and though I often did not understand them, 
I used to ask him and he would explain them, and then 
I read up and worked to try to amuse him, so that when 
I really came out, I found the set in which I was thrown 
rather young. It was as if I had fallen through an 
opened door into a nursery. I was very priggish, I have 
no doubt, but I was bored. Jim Canter and Milly 
McSheen were amusing enough for a while, but really 
they were rather young. I was fond'of driving and 
dancing, but I did not want to talk about it all the time, 
and then as I got older ” 

“How old ?” I demanded, amused at her idea of age. 

“Why, eighteen. How old do you think I should 
have been ? ” 

“Oh! I don’t know; you spoke as if you were as 
old as Anna in the temple. Pray go on.” 

“Well, that’s all. I just could not stand it. Aunt 
Sophie was bent on my marrying — somebody whom I 
could not bear — and oh! it was an awful bore. I looked 
around and saw the society women I was supposed to 
330 


FATE LEADS 


copy, and I’d rather have been dead than like that- 
eating, clothes, and bridge — that made up the round, 
with men as the final end and reward. I think I had 
hardly taken it in, till my eyes were opened once by a 
man's answer to a question as to who had been in the 
boxes at a great concert which he had attended and 
enjoyed: ‘Oh! I don't know — the usual sort — women 
who go to be seen with other women's husbands. The 
musical people were in the gallery listening.' Next 
time I went my eyes had been opened and I lis- 
tened and enjoyed the music. So, when I discovered 
there were real men in the world doing things, and 
really something that women could do, too, I found 
that life had a new interest, that is all.” 

“You know,” she said, after a pause in which she 
was reflecting and I was watching the play of expression 
in her face and dwelling in delicious reverie on the 
contour of her soft cheek, “You know, if I ever 
amount to anything in this world, it will be due to that 
man.” This might have meant either. 

I thought I knew of a better artificer than even John 
Marvel or Leo Wolffert, to whom was due all the light 
that was shed from her life, but I did not wish to 
question anything she said of old John. I was begin- 
ning to feel at peace with all the world. 

We were dawdling along now and I remember we 
stopped for a moment in front of a place somewhat 
more striking looking and better lighted than those 
about it, something between a pawnbroker's shop and 
a loan-office. The sign over the door was of a Guar- 
331 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

anty Loan Company, and added the word “Home” to 
Guaranty. It caught my eye and hers at the same 
moment. The name was that of the robber-company 
in which my poor client, McNeil, in his futile effort to 
pay his rent, had secured a small loan by a chattel- 
mortgage on his pitiful little furniture at something like 
three hundred per cent. The entire block belonged, as 
I had learned at the time, to the Argand Estate, and 
I had made it one of the points in my arraignment of 
that eleemosynary institution that the estate harbored 
such vampires as the two men who conducted this 
scoundrelly business in the very teeth of the law. On 
the windows were painted legends suggesting that within 
all money needed by any one might be gotten, one might 
have supposed, for nothing. I said, “With such a sign 
as that we might imagine that the poor need never 
want for money.” 

She suddenly flamed : “I know them. They are the 
greatest robbers on earth. They grind the face of the 
Poor until one wonders that the earth does not open 
and swallow them up quick. They are the thieves who 
ought to be in jail instead of such criminals as even 
that poor wretch, Talman, as great a criminal as he is. 
Why, they robbed his poor wife of every stick of furni- 
ture she had on earth, under guise of a loan, and turned 
her out in the snow with her crippled child. She was 
afraid to apply to any one for redress, and they knew it. 
And if it had not been for John Marvel, they would 
have starved or have frozen to death.” 

“For John Marvel and you,” I interjected. 

332 


FATE LEADS 


" No — only him. What I did was nothing — less than 
nothing. He found them, with that wonderful sixth 
sense of his. It is his heart. And he gets no credit for 
anything — even from you. Oh! sometimes I cannot 
bear it. I would like to go to him once and just tell him 
what I truly think of him.” 

“Why don’t you, then?” 

“Because — I cannot. But if I were you, I would. 
He would not — want me to do it! But some day 
I am going to Dr. Capon and tell him — tell him the 
truth.” 

She turned, facing me, and stood with clenched 
hands, uplifted face, and flashing eyes — breasting the 
wind which, at the moment, blew her skirts behind 
her, and as she poured forth her challenge, she ap- 
peared to me almost like some animate statue of 
victory. 

“Do you know — I think Mr. Marvel and Mr. Wolf- 
fert are almost the most Christian men I ever saw; and 
their life is the strongest argument in favor of Chris- 
tianity, I ever knew.” 

“Why, Wolffert is a Jew — he is not a Christian at 
all.” 

“He is — I only wish I were half as good a one,” she 
said. “ I do not care what he calls himself, he is. Why, 
think of him beside Doctor — beside some of those who 
set up to be burning and shining lights!” 

“Well, I will agree to that.” In fact, I agreed with 
everything she had said, though I confess to a pang of 
jealousy at such unstinted praise, as just as I thought 
333 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

it. And I began in my selfishness to wish I were more 
like either of her two models. As we stood in the wan- 
ing light — for we were almost standing, we moved so 
slowly — my resolution took form. 

It was not a propitious place for what I suddenly 
resolved to do. It was certainly not a romantic spot. 
For it was in the centre, the very heart, of a mean 
shopping district, a region of small shops and poor 
houses, and the autumn wind had risen with an edge 
on it and laden with dust, which made the thinly clad 
poor quicken their steps as they passed along and try 
to shrink closer within their threadbare raiment. The 
lights which were beginning to appear only added to 
the appearance of squalor about us. But like the soft 
Gallius I cared for none of these things. I saw only the 
girl beside me, wh<~se awakened soul seemed to me 
even more beautiful than her beautiful frame. And so 
far as I was concerned, we might have been in Paradise 
or in a desert. 

I recall the scene as if it were yesterday, the very 
softness in her face, the delicacy of her contour; the 
movement of her soft hair on her blue-veined white 
temple and her round neck as a gentle breath of air 
stirred it; the dreamy depths of her eyes as the smile 
faded in them and she relapsed into a reverie. An im- 
pulse seized me and I cast prudence, wisdom, reason, 
all to the winds and gave the rein to my heart. 

“Come here.” I took her arm and drew her a few 
steps beyond to where there was a vacant house. “Sit 
down here a moment.” I spread my handkerchief on 
334 


FATE LEADS 

the dusty steps, and she sat down, smiling after her 
little outbreak. 

Leaning over her, I took hold of her hand and lifted 
it to my breast, clasping it very tight. 

“Look at me — ” She had already looked in vague 
wonder, her eyes wide open, beginning the question 
which her lips were parting to frame. “Don’t say that 
to me — that about your belief in me — unless you mean 
it all — all. I love you and I mean to succeed for you — 
with you. I mean to marry you — some day.” 

The look in her eyes changed, but for a second they 
did not leave my face. My eyes were holding them. 

“Oh! — What?” she gasped, while her hand went 
up to her throat. 

Then she firmly, but as I afterward recalled, slowly 
withdrew her hand from my grasp, which made no 
attempt to detain it. 

“Are you crazy?” she gasped. And I truly believe 
she thought I was. 

“Yes — no — I don’t know. If I am, my insanity 
begins and ends only in you. I know only one thing — 
that I love you and that some day — some day, I am 
going to marry you, though the whole world and your- 
self oppose me.” 

She stood up. 

“But, oh! why did you say that?” 

“Because it is true.” 

“We were such good friends.” 

“We never were — I never was — for a moment.” 

“You were.” 


335 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“ Never.” 

“We were just beginning to understand each other, 
to be such good friends, and now you have ended it all.” 

“That cannot be ended which never had a begin- 
ning. I don’t want your friendship; I want your love 
and I will have it.” 

“No, I cannot. Oh! why did you? I must be going.” 

“Why? Sit down.” 

“No, I cannot. Good-by.” 

“Good-by.” 

She hesitated, and then without looking, held out 
her hand. “ Good-by.” 

I took her hand and this time kissed it, as I remem- 
ber, almost fiercely. She tried to stop me, but I held it 
firmly. 

“You must not do that; you have no right.” She 
was standing very 'straight now. 

“I took the right.” 

“Promise me you will never say that again.” 

“What?” 

“What you said at first.” 

“I don’t know what you mean. I have been saying 
the same thing all the time — ever since I knew you — 
ever since I was born — that I love you.” 

“You must never say that again — promise me before 
I go.” 

“ I promise you,” I said slowly, “ that I will say it as 
long as I live.” 

She appeared to let herself drift for a half second, 
then she gave a little catch at herself. 

336 


FATE LEADS 


“No, really, you must not — I cannot allow you. 
I have no right to let you. I must go, and if you are 
a friend of mine, you will never ” 

“Listen to me,” I interrupted firmly. “I have not 
asked you for anything; I have not asked your per- 
mission; I am not a friend of yours and I shall never 
be that. I don’t want to be your friend. I love you, 
and I am going to win your love. Now you can go 
Come on.” 

We walked on and I saw her safely home. We talked 
about everything and I told her much of myself. But 
she was plainly thinking not about what I was saying 
then, but what I had said on the dusty steps. When 
we reached her home, I saved her embarrassment. 
I held out my hand and said, “Good-by, I love you.” 

No woman can quite let a man go, at least, no woman 
with a woman’s coquetry can. After I had turned 
away, what must Eleanor Leigh do but say demurely, 
“I hope you will win your case.” I turned back, of 
course. “I will,” I said, “in both courts.” Then I 
strode away. I went home feeling somewhat as a man 
might who, after shipwreck, had reached an unknown 
shore. I was in a new land and knew not where I stood 
or how; or whether the issue would be life or death. 
I only knew that I had passed a crisis in my life and 
whatever came I must meet it. I was strangely happy, 
yet I had had no word of encouragement. 

To have declared one’s love has this in it, that hence- 
forth the one you love can never be wholly indifferent 
to you. I went home feeling that I had acquired a new 
337 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

relation to Eleanor Leigh and that somehow I had a 
right to her whether she consented or not. My love for 
her, as ardent as it had been before, had suddenly 
deepened. It had, in a way, also become purer. I went 
over and over and dwelt on every word she had ever 
uttered to me, every gentle look I had ever seen her 
give, every tender expression that had illumined her 
face or softened her eyes, and I found myself thinking of 
her character as I had never done before. I planned 
how I should meet her next and tried to fancy how she 
would look and what she would say. I wondered 
vaguely what she would think of me when she reached 
her room and thought over what I had said. But I 
soon left this realm of vague conjecture for the clearly 
defined elysium of my own love. Had I known what 
I learned only a long time afterward — how she acted 
and what she thought of on reaching home, I might 
have been somewhat consoled though still mystified. 


338 


XXVI 

COLL McSHEEN’S METHODS 

It is astonishing what a motive power love is. With 
Eleanor Leigh in my heart, I went to work on my 
Tipps case with fury. 

When I applied at the offices of the P. D. & B. D. 
and asked to be shown the books of the old company 
which had been reorganized and absorbed, I was met 
first by the polite assurance that there never was such 
a road as I mentioned, then that it had been wound up 
long ago and reorganized. Next, as I appeared some- 
what firm, I was informed that the books had been 
burned up in a great fire, spoken of as Caleb Balderstone 
used to speak of the Ravenswood fire, as “the fire.” 
This would have been an irremediable loss, but for the 
fact that I knew that there had been no fire since the 
reorganization of the company. I stated this fact with 
more positiveness than was usually employed in those 
offices and announced that unless those books were 
produced without further delay or misrepresentation, 
I would file a bill at once which would open the eyes of 
a number of persons. This procured for me an inter- 
view with an official of the vice-presidential rank — my 
first real advance. This proved to be my old acquaint- 
ance, Mr. Gillis, the agent of the Argand Estate. When 
I entered he wore an expression of sweet content as of 
339 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

a cat about to swallow a mouse. It was evident that 
he meant to have his revenge on me now. After stating 
my object in calling, with so much circumstantiality 
that there could be no mistake about it, I was informed 
by Mr. Gillis, briefly but firmly, that those books were 
not accessible, that they were “private property and not 
open to the public.” 

Stillman Gillis was a wiry, clear-eyed, firm-mouthed, 
middle-sized man of about middle age as older men 
regard it. He had a pleasant address, perfect self- 
assurance, and a certain cool impudence in his manner 
which I have often observed in the high officials of large 
corporations. He had, I knew, been the private secre- 
tary and confidential man of Mr. David Argand. 

“I am aware that the books are private property,” 
I said, “but it happens that I am myself one of the 
owners — I represent two very considerable owners of 
the stock of the old company.” 

He shook his head pleasantly. “That makes no 
difference.” 

I could not help thinking of the turnkey at the jail. 
It was insolence, but only of a different sort. 

“You mean to say that it makes no difference whether 
or not I am a stockholder when I demand to see the 
books of the company in which I hold my interest?” 

“Not the slightest,” he admitted. 

“I suppose you have consulted counsel as to this?” 

“Oh! yes; but it was not necessary.” 

“Well! you have the books?” 

“Oh! yes.” 


340 


COLL McSHEEN’S METHODS 

“Because some of your people told me that they had 
been burnt up in a fire.” 

“Did they tell you that?” he smilingly asked. 
“They did that to save you trouble.” 

“Considerate in them.” 

“Of course, we have the books — in our vaults.” 

“Buried?” I hazarded. 

He nodded. “Beyond the hope of resurrection.” 
He took up his pen to show that the interview was ended; 
and I took up my hat. 

“Do you mind telling me who your counsel is that 
you consulted in these matters? I might prevail on 
him to change his mind.” 

“Oh! no. Mr. Collis McSheen is our counsel — one 
of them.” 

“Has he specifically given you this advice?” 

“He has.” He turned to his stenographer. “Take 
this letter.” 

“So — o.” I reflected a moment and then tilted back 
my chair. 

“Mr. Gillis — one moment more of your valuable 
time, and I will relieve you.” 

“Well?” He turned back to me with a sudden 
spark in his gray eye. “ Really, I have no more time to 
give you.” 

“Just a moment. You are mistaken in thinking you 
are giving me time. I have been giving you time. The 
next time we meet, you will be a witness in court under 
subpoena and I will examine you.” 

“Examine me? As to what, pray?” His face had 
341 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

grown suddenly dark and his insolence had turned to 
anger. 

“ As to what you know of the fraud that was perpe- 
trated on the heirs of a certain Colonel Tipps who built 
and once largely owned the road I have spoken of.” 

“ Fraud, sir! What do you mean ?” 

“As to what you know — if anything — of the arrange- 
ment by which a certain Collis McSheen sold out his 
clients, the said heirs of the said Colonel Tipps, to 
a certain Mr. Argand, whose private secretary you 
then were; and whose retained counsel he then be- 
came.” 

“What!” 

His affected coolness was all gone. His countenance 
was black with a storm of passion, where wonder, 
astonishment, rage, all played their part, and I thought 
I saw a trace of dismay as well. 

“What do you mean, sir! What do I know of the — 
the fraud — the arrangements, if there ever were any 
such arrangements as those you speak of?” 

I was the insolent one now. I bowed. 

“That is what I am going to ask you to tell in court. 
You have the books, and you will bring them with you 
when you come, under a subpoena duces tecum. Good- 
day.” I walked out. 

As I approached my office, I saw Collis McSheen 
bolting out of the door and down the street, his face as 
black as a thunder-cloud. He was in such a hurry that 
he did not see me, though he nearly ran over me. He 
had evidently been summoned by telephone. 

342 


COLL McSHEEN'S METHODS 


I was working on my bill a few days later when to my 
surprise Peck walked into my office. I knew instantly 
that there was mischief afoot. He looked unusually 
smug. He had just arrived that morning, he said. 
Mr. Poole had some important interests in a railway 
property which required looking after, and he had come 
on to see about them. There was not much to do, as 
the road was being capitally managed; but they thought 
best to have some one on the ground to keep an eye on 
the property, and remembering our old friendship, he 
had suggested that I be retained to represent Mr. Poole, 
if anything should at any time arise, and Mr. Poole 
had, of course, acted on his advice. Mr. Poole had in 
fact, always been such a friend of mine, etc. The 
trouble with Peck was that he always played a trump 
even when it was not necessary. 

I expressed my sense of obligation to both him and 
Mr. Poole, but in my heart could not help recalling the 
chances Mr. Poole had thrown away to help me in the 
past. 

“ What sort of interests are they ? ” I inquired. 

“ Railway interests. He has both stocks and bonds — 
second mortgage bonds. But they are as good as gold 
— pay dividends straight along. The railway has never 
failed to increase its net earnings every year for ten 
years, and is a very important link in a transcontinental 
line.” 

“What railway did you say it was?” I inquired, for 
I had observed that he had not mentioned the line. 
“Oh! ah! the P. D. & B. D.” 

343 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Oh! Well, the fact is, Peck, I don’t know that I 
could represent Mr. Poole in any litigation connected 
with that road.” 

“Oh! it is not litigation, my dear fellow. You’d as 
well talk about litigation over the Bank of England. 
It is to represent him as a sort of regular ” 

“I know,” I cut him short, “but I think there will 
be some litigation. The fact is, I have a claim against 
that road.” 

“A claim against the P. D. & B. D.! For damages, 
I suppose?” 

“No. To upset the reorganization that took 
place ” 

Peck burst out laughing. “To upset the reorganiza- 
tion of that road which took place ten — twenty — How 
many years ago was it? You’d better try to upset the 
government of the United States.” 

“Oh! No ” 

“ Come now. Don’t be Quixotic. I’ve come here to 
give you a good case that may be the beginning of a 
great practice for you. Why you may become general 
counsel.” 

“I thought Mr. McSheen was general counsel ? You 
said so, I remember, when you were here before.” 

“Why, ah! yes. He is in a way. You would, of 
course, be — in a way, his — ah ” 

“Peck,” I said, and I kept my eye on him blandly. 
“Have you seen Mr. McSheen since your arrival?” 

“Why, yes, I have. I had to see him, of course, 

because he is, as I told you, the general counsel ” 

344 


COLL McSHEEN’S METHODS 


*Tn a way?” I interpolated. 

“ Yes. And of course I had to see him. It would not 
have been quite professional if I had not.” 

“And he assents to your proposition?” 

“Oh! yes, entirely. In fact, he — ” He paused and 
then added, “is entirely satisfied. He says you are an 
excellent lawyer.” 

“Much obliged to him. I beat him in the only case 
I ever had against him.” 

“What was that?” 

“Oh, a small case against the Argand Estate.” 

“Oh! Well now, Glave, don’t be Quixotic. Here is 
the chance of your life. All the big people — the Argand 
Estate, Mr. Leigh, Mr. McSheen, Mr. Canter. Why, 
it may lead you — no one can tell where!” 

“That is true,” I said, quietly. Then quite as quietly 
I asked: “Did Mr. McSheen send for you to come on 
here?” 

“Did Mr. McSheen send for me to come on here? 
Why, no. Of course, he did not. I came on to look 
after Mr. Poole’s interest.” 

“And to employ me to represent him?” 

“Yes.” 

“And to give up my clients as McSheen did?” 

“What!” 

“Peck, tell Mr. McSheen that neither my dog nor 
myself is for sale.” 

“What! I — I don’t understand,” stammered Peck. 

“Well, maybe so. But you give McSheen the mes- 
sage. He will understand it. And now I will explain 
345 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

it to you, so you may understand.” I explained briefly 
to him my connection with the matter and my proposed 
line of action; and he naturally endeavored to satisfy 
me as to the absolute futility of such a course as I pro- 
posed. 

“Why, consider,” he said, “the people you will have 
to contend with — the idea that you can prove fraud 
against such persons as Mr. Leigh, the Argands, Mr. 
McSheen.” 

“I don’t expect to prove fraud on Mr. Leigh,” I 
quickly interposed. 

“You will have to sue him. He is a director.” 

“I know it. But he came in after the transaction 
was completed and I believe knew nothing about it, 
and he has left the directory. But why are you so in- 
terested in Mr. Leigh? His interests in the street-car 
lines are directly opposed to Mr. Poole’s?” 

“I am not interested in Mr. Leigh, but in you. Why, 
do you imagine any judge in this city would even con- 
sider a bill charging fraud against such persons as those 
I have mentioned ? For I tell you they will not. You 
will just make a lot of enemies and have your trouble 
for your pains.” 

“Perhaps so — but Peck, you have not mentioned all 
the people I shall have to sue.” 

“ Who do you mean ? I have only mentioned one or 
two.” 

“Mr. Poole.” 

Peck’s countenance fell. 

“Mr. Poole! What did he have to do with it?” 

346 


COLL McSHEEN’S METHODS 


“He was one of them — one of those who engineered 
the reorganization — and swin — engineered the heirs of 
Colonel Tipps and some others out of their interest. 
Well, give my message to Mr. McSheen, ,, I said, rising, 
for Peck’s duplicity came over me like a wave. “You 
may understand it better now. Neither my dog nor 
I is for sale. Peck, you ought to know me better.” 

Peck left with that look on his face that used to 
annoy me so at college — something that I can best 
describe as a mechanical simper. It had no warmth 
in it and was the twilight between indifference and 
hate. 

Peck evidently conveyed my message. 

While I worked on my case, Mr. McSheen was not 
idle. Not long after, I was walking along a narrow, 
dark street on my way home from my office late one 
night when I was struck by Dix’s conduct. It was very 
strange. Instead of trotting along zigzag going from 
comer to corner and inspecting alleyways for chance 
cats to enliven life, as he usually did at night when the 
streets were fairly empty, he kept close at my heels, now 
and then actually rubbing against my knee as he walked, 
as he did in the crowded section when I took him along. 
And once or twice he stopped and, half turning his head, 
gave a low, deep growl, a sure signal of his rising anger. 
I turned and gazed around, but seeing no cause for his 
wrath, concluded that a dog was somewhere in the 
neighborhood, whom he detected though I could not 
see him. I was aware afterward that I had seen two 
men pass on the other side of the street and that they 
347 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

crossed over to my side near the comer ahead of me; 
but I took no notice of them. I had a pleasanter sub- 
fect of thought as I strolled along. I was thinking of 
Eleanor Leigh and building air castles in which she 
was always the chatelaine. 

Dix’s low growl fell on my ear, but I paid no heed. 
The next second — it was always a little confused in my 
mind, the blow came so quickly — I was conscious of a 
man — or two men, springing from behind something 
just at my side and of Dix’s launching himself at 
them with a burst of rage, and at the same moment, 
something happened to me — I did not know what. 
A myriad stars darted before my eyes and I felt a violent 
pain in my shoulder. I staggered and fell to my knees; 
but sprang up again under a feeling that I must help 
Dix, who seemed to have been seized by one of the men 
in his arms, a stout stumpy fellow, while the other was 
attempting to kill him with a bludgeon which he car- 
ried. I flung myself on the latter, and seizing him by 
the throat bore him back against the wall, when he 
suddenly twisted loose and took to his heels. Then I 
turned on the other who, I thought, was trying to carry 
Dix off. I found, however, that instead he was making 
a fight for his life. At the moment he dropped a pistol 
which he was drawing and I sprang for it and got it. 
Dix had leaped straight for his throat and, having made 
good his hold, had hung on and the man was already 
nearly strangled. “For God’s sake, take him off. Kill 
him. I’m choking,” he gasped as with weakening 
hands he tore at the dog’s massive shoulders. “I’m 
348 


COLL McSHEEN'S METHODS 


choking.” And at that moment he staggered, stumbled, 
and sank to his knees with a groan. 

Fearing that he would be killed on the spot, though 
I was sick and dizzy from the blow, I seized Dix by the 
throat and with a strong wrench of his windpipe at the 
same time that I gave him an order, I broke his hold. 
And fortunately for the ruffian, his heavy coat collar 
had partially saved his throat. 

The wretch staggered to his feet with an oath and 
supported himself against the wall while I pacified 
Dix, who was licking his chops, his hair still up on his 
back, his eyes still on his enemy. 

“Are you hurt?” I asked, for, though still dizzy, the 
need to act had brought my senses back. 

“What business is that of yours?” he demanded 
brutally. “Wait a minute. I’ll kill that d d dog.” 

The reply to my inquiry was so brutal that my anger 
rose. 

“You drunken beast! Say a word and I’ll give you 
to him again and let him worry you like a rat. You 
see him ! Keep back, Dix ! ” for the dog, recognizing my 
anger, had advanced a little and flattened himself to 
spring on the least provocation. 

“I didn’t mean no offence,” the fellow growled. 
“But I don’t like a d d dog to be jumpin’ at me.” 

“You don’t! What did you mean by trying to mur- 
der me?” 

“I didn’t try to murder you.” 

“You did. I have no money — not a cent. I’m as 
poor as you are.” 


349 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I wa’n’t after no money.” 

“What then? What had I ever done to you that 
you should be after me?” 

“I wa’n’t after you.” 

“You were. You tried to kill me. You’ve cut my 
head open and no thanks to you that you didn’t kill 
me. 

“ ’T wa’n’t me. ’T was that other fellow, the skunk 
that runned away and left me.” 

“What’s his name?” 

“I don’ know. I never seen him before.” 

“What are you lying to me for? What’s his name 
and why was he after me ? Tell me and I’ll let you go 
— otherwise — I’ll give you to the police.” 

“I’ll tell you this — he’s a friend of a man you know.” 

“Of a man I know? Who?” 

“He’s a big man, too.” 

“A big man! Do you mean — You don’t mean 
Coll McSheen ? ” 

“I didn’t tell you, did I? You can swear to that. 
Now give me five dollars and let me go.” 

“I haven’t any money at all, but I’ll take you to a 
doctor and get your wound dressed. I have to go to 
one, too.” 

“I don’ want no doctor — I’m all right.” 

“No, I won’t give you up,” I said, “if you’ll tell me 
the truth. I’m not after you. If I’d wanted to give 
you up, I’d have fired this pistol and brought the police. 
Come on. But don’t try to run off or I’ll let you have 
it.” 


350 


COLL McSHEEN’S METHODS 

He came along, at first surlily enough; but presently 
he appeared to get in a better temper, at least with me, 
and turned his abuse on his pal for deserting him. He 
declared that he had not meant to do me any harm, in 
fact, that he had only met the other man accidentally 
and did not know what he was going to do, etc. 

I was so fortunate as to find my friend Dr. Traumer 
at home, and he looked after the wound in the scoun- 
drel's throat and then took a look at my hurt. 

“You had a close graze," he said, “but I don't think 
it is anything more serious than a bad scrape on your 
head, and a laceration and bruise on the shoulder." 

While he was working on the footpad I telephoned 
Langton, got hold of him and asked him to come there, 
which he said he would do at once. Just as the doctor 
was through with me, Langton walked in. I never saw 
so surprised an expression on his face as that when his 
eyes fell on my thug. I saw at once that he knew him. 
But as usual he said nothing. The thug, too, evidently 
knew he was an officer; for he gave me one swift glance 
of fear. I, however, allayed his suspicion. 

“It's all right," I said, “if you tell me the truth. 
Who is he?" I asked Langton. He smiled. 

“ Red Talman. What've you been up to ? " he asked. 

“Nothin'." 

“I brought him here to have his wound dressed, and 
he's going directly. I have promised him." 

He nodded. 

“Coll McSheen put him on to a little job and he 
bungled it, that's all." 


351 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Langton actually looked pleased; but I could not 
tell whether it was because his warning had been veri- 
fied or because I had escaped. 

“’T was that other skunk,” muttered Talman 
sullenly. 

“Who? Dutch?” 

The footpad coughed. “Don’ know who ’t was.” 

“You don’t? You don’t know who I am either?” 

The man gave him a keen look of inspection, but he 
evidently did not know him. Langton leaned over 
and dropped his voice. “Did you ever know — ?” I 
could not catch the name. But the thug’s eyes popped 
and he turned white under his dirt. 

“I didn’t have nothin’ ’t all to do with it. I was in 
Canady,” he faltered. 

Langton’s eyes suddenly snapped. “I know where 
you were. This gentleman’s a friend of mine,” he said. 
“He saved my life once, and if you ever touch him, I’ll 
have you — ” He made a gesture with his hand to his 
throat. “Understand? And not all the bosses in the 
city will save you. Understand?” 

“I ain’t goin’ to touch him. I got nothin’ against 
him.” 

“You’d better not have,” said Langton, implacably. 
“ Come here.” He took him out into the doctor’s front 
office and talked to him for some little time while I told 
the doctor of my adventure. 

“Who is Langton when he is at home?” I asked 
him. 

He chuckled. “He is the best man for you to have 

352 


COLL McSHEEN’S METHODS 


in this city if Coll McSheen is your enemy. He is a 
retainer of Mr. Leigh’s.” 

Just then Langton and the thug came in. 

“Say, I’m sorry I took a hand in that job,” said the 
latter. “But that skunk that runned away, he put ’t 
up, and he said ’s another friend of his got him to do it.” 

“Coll McSheen?” 

“I don’t know who ’t was,” he persisted. 

I glanced at Langton, and he just nodded. 

“Good-by. If ever you wants a job done ” 

“Get out,” said Langton. 

“Don’t you give ’t to that other skunk. I didn’t 
know. Good-by. Obliged to you.” And he passed 
through the door which Langton held open for him. 

“It’s all right,” said the latter as he closed the door. 
“You had a close graze — that’s one of the worst crimi- 
nals in the country. He don’t generally bungle a job. 
But he’s all right now. But there are others.” 

“My dog saved my life — he got his throat.” 

“That’s a good dog. Better keep him close to you 
for a while.” 


353 


XXVII 

THE SHADOW 


A great factory with the machinery all working and 
revolving with absolute and rhythmic regularity and 
with the men all driven by one impulse and moving in 
unison as though a constituent part of the mighty ma- 
chine, is one of the most inspiring examples of directed 
force that the world shows. I have rarely seen the face 
of a mechanic in the act of creation which was not fine, 
never one which was not earnest and impressive. 

Such were the men, some hundreds of them, whom 
I used to gaze at and admire and envy through the 
open windows of several great factories and mills along 
the street through which lay my way to my office. I 
chose this street for the pleasure of seeing them of a 
morning, as with bared and brawny arms and chests 
and shining brows, eager and earnest and bold, they 
bent over glowing fires and flaming furnaces and rolled 
massive red-hot irons hither and yon, tossing them 
about, guiding them in their rush and swing and whirl, 
as though they were very sons of Vulcan, and ever with 
a catch of song or a jest, though a swerve of the fraction 
of an inch might mean death itself. 

I had come to know some of them well, that is, as 
well as a man in a good coat can know men in a work- 
man’s blouse, and numbers of them I began to know 
354 


THE SHADOW 


in a sort, as day after day I fell in beside them on their 
way to or from their work; for, lawyer and gentleman 
as I was, they, I think, felt in me the universal touch of 
brotherhood. We used to talk together, and I found 
them human to the core and most intelligent. Wolff ert 
was an idol among them. They looked to him as to 
a champion. 

“ He has learned,” said one of them to me once, “ the 
secret of getting at us. He takes us man for man and 
don’t herd us like cattle. He speaks to me on a level, 
man to man, and don’t patronize me.” 

He was a strong-visaged, clear-eyed Teuton with a 
foreign accent. 

“We haf our own home,” he said with pride, “and 
the building company is ’most off my back. If we can 
but keep at vork we’ll soon be safe, and the young ones 
are all at school. The sun shines bright after the 
storm,” he added with a shake of his strong head. 

“Ah, well, we are having good times now. The sun 
is shining for many of us. Let us pray that it may 
keep shining.” 

“ God grant it,” he said, solemnly. 

I was thinking of Miss Eleanor Leigh and the way she 
had smiled the last time Heaven had favored me with a 
sight of her. That was sunshine enough for me. She 
had heard of the attack on me and had been so sym- 
pathetic that I had almost courted her again on the 
spot. John Marvel had made me out quite a hero. 

The good times, however, of which my mill-friends 
and I talked were rapidly passing. In Coll McSheen’s 
355 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

offices plans were being laid which were to blot out the 
sun for many a poor family. 

Within a day or two I began to observe in the press 
ominous notices of an approaching strike. All the 
signs, it was declared, pointed to it. Meetings were 
being held, and the men were rapidly getting out of 
hand of their conservative leaders, who, it being on the 
verge of winter, were averse to their undertaking the 
strike at this time, notwithstanding what they admitted 
were their undoubted and long-standing grievances. 
As I ran over the accounts in many of the papers I was 
surprised to find that among these “conservatives” 
was mentioned the name of Wringman. It was evi- 
dent, however, that the efforts of the conservative ele- 
ment were meeting with success; for in the working- 
men’s section through which I passed every day there 
was not as yet the least sign of excitement of any kind, 
or, indeed, of any dissatisfaction. The railway men 
all appeared quiet and contented, and the force in the 
several large factories along my route whom I mingled 
with in my tramp back and forth from my office were 
not only free from moroseness, but were easy and 
happy. The only strikes going on in the city were those 
on the lines in which the Argand interests were, and they 
were frequently spoken of as “chronic.” 

The mills were all running as usual; work was going 
on; but a shadow was deepening over the community 
of the operatives. The strike which the newspapers 
had been prophesying for some time was decreed — not 
yet, indeed, by the proper authorities; but it was de- 
356 


THE SHADOW 


termined on by the leaders, and its shadow was dark- 
ening the entire section. The first knowledge I had of 
it was the gloom that appeared on the countenances of 
the men I saw in the morning. And when I met Wolf- 
fert he was more downcast than I had seen him in a 
long time. He had been working night and day to 
stave off the trouble. 

“The poor fools !” was all he could say. “They are 
the victims of their ignorance.” 

From my earliest arrival in the city I had been aware 
of something about the laboring element — something 
connected with the Union, yet different from what I 
had been accustomed to elsewhere. I had ever been 
an advocate of the union of workingmen to protect 
themselves against the tyranny and insolence of those 
who, possibly by fortuitous circumstances, were their 
employers. I had seen the evil of the uncurbed inso- 
lence added to the unlimited power of the boss to take 
on or to fling off whom he pleased and, while the occu- 
pation lasted, to give or reduce wages as he pleased. 
And I had seen the tyrannous exercise of this power — 
had seen men turned off for nothing but the whim of 
a superior; had seen them hacked about; ordered 
around as if they had been beasts of burden, and if they 
ever murmured, told to go elsewhere, as though a poor 
man with a family of children could “go elsewhere” at 
an hour’s notice; hundreds of men, thousands of men 
“laid off,” because, it was said, “times were dull,” 
though the returns from their work in good times had 
made their employers rich beyond anything their fathers 
357 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

had ever dreamed of. And I had witnessed with tin 
joy that a man feels in seeing justice meted out, the ris 
of a power able to exact, if not complete, at least, 
measurable justice for the down-trodden. 

But here was something different. It was still th 
Union; but bore a new complexion and a different rek 
tion alike to the workingman, the employer, and th 
public. It was a strange power and its manifestatio. 
was different. It was not in active exercise when 
first went among the workingmen. Yet it was eve 
present. A cloud appeared to hang over the population 
there was a feeling that a volcano, as yet quiet, migh 
burst forth at any time, and no man could tell what th 
end might be. It was ever in men’s minds, not onl 
the workingmen’s, but the tradesmen’s, the middle 
men’s. It appeared to keep on edge a keen antagonisn 
between all laboring men as such and all other men 
It was nearer and more important than politics or re 
ligion. It had entered into their lives and created i 
power which they feared and obeyed. To a consid- 
erable extent it had taken away their liberties, and theii 
lives were regulated by their relation to it. I saw the 
growth of the system and was mystified by it, for I 
saw individuality and personal liberty passing away — 
men deliberately abandoning their most cherished 
privileges to submit to a yoke that was being put on 
them. I noted the decline of excellence in the indi- 
vidual’s work and of ambition for excellence in himself 
— the decay of the standard of good workmanship. 
I marked the mere commercial question of wages — 
358 


THE SHADOW 


igher wages irrespective of better work — take the 
lace of the old standard of improved workmanship 
id witnessed the commercialism which in large figures 
ad swept over the employer class, now creep over and 
igulf the laboring class to the destruction of all fine 
ubition and the reduction of excellence to a dead 
vel of indifferent mediocrity. They deliberately sur- 
rndered individual liberty and all its possibilities and 
ecame the bondmen of a tyrannous dictator which 
ley set up. 

I was familiar with the loafer and the shirker. He is 
icident to humanity. He exists in every calling and 
ink of life. But it was novel to me to find an entire 
ass deliberately loafing and shirking and slurring on 
rinciple. I saw gangs of workmen waiting around, 
livering in the wind, for the hour to come when they 
light take up the tools which lay at hand with which 
ley might have warmed themselves. I saw them on 
le stroke, drop those tools as though the wave of 
>und had paralyzed their arms. I saw them leave the 
one half set, the rivet half driven, the bar half turned; 
le work, whatever it was, half done. I saw bright, 
lert, intelligent men, whose bodies were twice and 
leir brains ten times as active as their fellows’, do 
ouble work in the same time as the latter and then 
awdle and loaf and yawn empty-handed beside the 
nfinished work with which they might readily have 
oubled their income. I asked some of my friends why it 
r as and the answer was always the same: “the Union.” 
A strike was going on on the other side of the town, 
359 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

but the direct results were not yet felt among us, and 
as the enterprises there where the trouble existed were 
in conflict with those on our side, and therefore our 
rivals, it did not appear likely that we should be affected 
except possibly to our advantage. The population of 
our section, therefore, looked on and discussed the 
troubles with the placid satisfaction of men who, secure 
on land, discuss and commiserate those tossed by 
storms far off, whose existence is known only by the 
long surges that with spent force roll against their 
shore. They enjoyed their own good fortune, rejoiced 
in the good times, and to a considerable extent spent 
their earnings like children, almost indifferent as to the 
future. 


360 


XXVIII 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 

Miss Eleanor Leigh had observed for some time that 
her father was more than usually grave and preoccupied. 
She knew the cause, for her father discussed many 
matters with her. It was often his way of clarifying 
his own views. Ajid when he asked her what she 
thought of them she felt that it was the highest compli- 
ment she ever received — not that he took her advice, 
she knew, but this did not matter; he had consulted 
her. The fact gave her a self-reliance wholly different 
from mere conceit. It steadied her and furnished her a 
certain atmosphere of calm in which she formed her 
judgment in other matters. Of late, in the shadow of 
the clash with his operatives, which appeared to be 
growing more and more imminent, he had not advised 
with her as formerly and the girl felt it. Was it due to 
the views which she had been expressing of late touching 
the suppression of the laboring class? She knew that 
her father held views as to this quite the opposite of 
those she had been vaguely groping toward, and while he 
treated her views with amused indulgence he consid- 
ered the whole line of thought as the project of selfish 
demagogues, or, at best, of crack-brained doctrinaires. 
It might suit for the millennium, but not for a society in 
361 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

which every man was competing with every other man. 
In fact, however, the principal reason for Mr. Leigh’s 
silence was the growing differences between himself 
and Mrs. Argand. The struggle had grown until it 
involved the very existence of his house. He knew 
that if his daughter ever realized the truth, that her 
aunt’s interest had been thrown against him and in 
favor of men whose methods he reprobated, it would 
mean the end of all between them, and he was unwilling 
that a breach should come between his daughter and 
her mother’s sister. 

The status of the present relation with his men was, 
however, growing steadily worse and more threatening. 
The influences at work were more and more apparent. 
The press was giving more and more space to the widen- 
ing breach, and the danger of a strike on a vast scale 
that should exceed anything ever known heretofore 
was steadily increasing. 

Eleanor knew that this was the cloud that left its 
shadow on her father’s brow and she determined to 
make an effort to assist him. She had revolved the 
scheme in her little head and it appeared the very thing 
to do. 

The approach of Thanksgiving offered an oppor- 
tunity for an act of good-will which she. felt sure would 
bear fruit. She had talked it over with John Marvel 
and he had glowed at the suggestion. So one day at 
the table she broke in on her father’s reverie. 

“Father, how many men have you in the mills and 
on the railway ? ” 


362 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 


Her father smiled as he nearly always did when 
she spoke to him, as, indeed, most people smiled, 
with sheer content over the silvery voice and sparkling 
eyes. 

“Why, roughly, in the mills about eleven hundred — 
there may be a few more or a few less to-day; to- 
morrow there will not be one.” 

“Oh! I hope they won’t do that. I have such a 
beautiful plan.” 

“What is it? To give them all they demand, and 
have them come back with a fresh and more insolent 
demand to-morrow?” 

“No, to give them — every one who has a family, a 
Thanksgiving basket — a turkey.” 

Her father burst out laughing. “A turkey? Better 
give them a goose. What put that idea into your little 
head ? Why, they would laugh at you if they did not 
fling it back in your face.” 

“Oh! no, they would not. I never saw any one who 
did not respond to kindness.” 

“Better wait till after to-morrow and you will save 
a lot of turkeys.” 

“No, I am serious. I have been thinking of it for 
quite a while and I have some money of my own.” 

“You’d better keep it. You may come to need it.” 

“No, I want to try my plan. You do not forbid it?” 

“Oh, no! If you can avert the strike that they are 
preparing for, your money will be a good investment.” 

“I don’t do it as an investment,” protested the girl. 
“I do it as an act of kindness.” 

363 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“All right, have your way. It can’t do ally harm. 
If you succeed, I shall be quite willing to foot the 
bills.” 

“No, this is my treat,” said the girl, “ though I shall 
put your name in too.” 

So, that day Miss Eleanor Leigh spent inspecting and 
getting prices on turkeys, and by night she had placed 
her order with a reliable man who had promised to pro- 
vide the necessary number of baskets, and, what is 
more, had gotten interested in her plan. She had en- 
listed also the interest of John Marvel, who worked like 
a Trojan in furtherance of her wishes. And I, having 
learned from John of her charitable design, gave my 
assistance with what I fear was a less unselfish phi- 
lanthropy. Happily, disease is not the only thing that 
is contagious. It was impossible to work shoulder to 
shoulder with those two and not catch something of 
John Marvel’s spirit, not to mention the sweet contagion 
of Eleanor Leigh’s charming enthusiasm. I learned 
much in that association of her cleverness and sound 
sterling sense as she organized her force and set them 
to work. And I was fortunate enough to get one of her 
charming smiles. It was when she said, “I want one 
of the best baskets for Mrs. Kenneth McNeil,” and I 
replied, “I have already sent it.” Thus, in due time, 
on the day before Thanksgiving Day, a score of wagons 
were busily at work carrying not only the turkeys 
ordered by Miss Leigh, as a Thanksgiving present for 
each family in her father’s employ, but with each one a 
basket of other things. 


364 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 


It happened that that night a great meeting of the 
operatives was held. 

It was largely attended, for though the object had not 
been stated in the call, it was well known that it was to 
consider a momentous subject; nothing less than an 
ultimatum on the part of the men to the Company, and 
this many of the men felt was the same thing with a 
strike. The name of David Wringman, the chief 
speaker, was a guaranty of this. He was a man who 
had forged his way to the front by sheer force, mainly 
sheer brute force. From a common laborer he had 
risen to be one of the recognized leaders in what had 
come to be known as the workingmen’s movement. He 
had little or no education, and was not known to have 
technical training of any kind. Some said he had been 
a machinist; some a miner; some a carpenter. His 
past was, in fact, veiled in mystery. No one knew, 
indeed, where he came from. Some said he was Irish; 
some that he was Welsh; some that he was American. 
All that was known of him positively was that he was a 
man of force, with a gift of fluent speech and fierce in- 
vective, which rose at times and under certain condi- 
tions to eloquence. At least, he could sway an assem- 
blage of workingmen, and, at need, he was not back- 
ward in using his fists, or any other weapon that came 
to hand. Speaking of Wringman, Wolffert once said 
that not the least of the misfortunes of the poor was the 
leaders they were forced to follow. His reputation for 
brute strength was quite equal to his reputation as a 
speaker, and stories were freely told of how, when oppo- 
365 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

sition was too strong for him in a given meeting, he 
had come down from the platform and beaten his 
opponents into submission with his brawny fists. It 
was rumored how he had, more than once, even waylaid 
his rivals and done them up, but this story was gen- 
erally told in undertones; for Wringman was now too 
potent and dangerous a man for most men of his class 
to offend personally without good cause. His presence 
in the city was in itself a sign that some action would 
be taken, for he had of late come to be known as an 
advanced promoter of aggressive action. To this bold 
radicalism was due much of his power. He was “not 
afraid of the capitalists,” men said. And so they 
established him in his seat as their leader. To his 
presence was due a goodly share of the shadow that had 
been gathering over the workingmen’s part of the sec- 
tion of the town which I have noted. 

Thus, the meeting on the evening I speak of was 
largely attended. For an hour before the time set for 
it the large hall in the second story of a big building 
was crowded, and many who could not get in were 
thronging the stairways and the street outside. A reek 
of strong tobacco pervaded the air and men with sullen 
brows talked in undertones, broken now and then by 
a contentious discussion in some group in which pos- 
sibly some other stimulant than tobacco played a part. 

Wolff ert and Marvel had both been trying to avert 
the strike, and had, I heard, made some impression 
among the people. Marvel had worked hard all day 
aiding Miss Leigh in her friendly efforts, and Wolffert 
366 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 

had been arguing on rational grounds against a strike 
at the beginning of winter. I had been talking over 
matters with some of my mill-friends who had invited 
me to go with them; so I attended the meeting. I had 
been struck for some time with the change that had 
been going on in the workingmen’s districts. As 
wretched as they had been before they were now in- 
finitely more so. 

The meeting began, as the meetings of such bodies 
usually begin, with considerable discussion and ap- 
pearance of deliberation. There was manifest much 
discontent and also much opposition to taking any 
steps that would lead to a final breach. A number of 
men boldly stood forth to declare for the half-a-loaf- 
better-than-no-bread theory, and against much hooting 
they stood their ground. The question of a resolution 
of thanks for Miss Leigh’s baskets aroused a little 
opposition, but the majority were manifestly for it, 
and many pleasant things were said about her and her 
father as well, his liberal policy being strongly con- 
trasted with the niggard policy of the other roads. 
Then there appeared the real leader of the occasion, to 
hear whom the meeting had been called: Wringman. 
And within ten minutes he had everything his own way. 
He was greeted with cheers as he entered, and he 
shouldered his way to the front with a grim look on his 
face that had often prepared the way for him. He was 
undoubtedly a man of power, physical and mental. 
Flinging off his heavy overcoat, he scarcely waited for 
the brief introduction, undertaken by the Chairman of 
367 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

the occasion, and, refusing to wait for the cheers to sub- 
side. he plunged at once into the midst of his subject. 

“Workingmen, why am I here? Because, like you, 
I am a working man.” He stretched out his long arm 
and swept it in a half circle and they cheered his gesture 
and voice, and violent action, though had they con- 
sidered, as they might well have done, he had not “hit 
a lick” with his hands in a number of years. Unless, 
indeed, a rumor which had begun to go the rounds was 
true, that he had once at least performed work for the 
government in an institution where the labor was not 
wholly voluntary. 

Then came a catalogue of their grievances and wrongs, 
presented with much force and marked dramatic ability, 
and on the heels of it a tirade against all employers and 
capitalists, and especially against their employer, whom 
he pictured as their arch enemy and oppressor, the chief 
and final act of whose infamy, he declared to be his 
“attempt to bribe them with baskets of rotten fowls.” 
Who was this man ? He would tell them. He held in 
his hand a paper which pictured him in his true char- 
acter. Here he opened a journal and read from the 
article I had written for Kalender — the infamous head- 
lines of the editor which changed the whole. This was 
the man with whom they had to deal — a man who 
flung scraps from his table for famishing children to 
wrangle over with dogs. There was but one way to 
meet such insolence, he declared, to fling them back in 
his face and make him understand that they didn’t 
want favors from him, but justice; not rotten fowls, 
368 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 


but their own hard-earned money. “And now,” he 
cried, “I put the motion to send every basket back with 
this message and to demand an increase of twenty-five 
per cent, pay forthwith. Thus, we shall show them 
and all the world that we are independent American 
workmen earning our own bread and asking no man’s 
meat. Let all who favor this rise and the scabs sit still.’ 

It was so quickly and shrewdly done that a large 
part of the assembly were on their feet in a second, 
indeed, many of them were already standing, and the 
protest of the objectors was lost in the wild storm of 
applause. Over on the far side I saw little McNeil 
shouting and gesticulating in vehement protest; but as 
I caught sight of him a dozen men piled on him and 
pulled him down, hammering him into silence. The 
man’s power and boldness had accomplished what his 
reasoning could never have effected. 

The shouts that went up showed how completely he 
had won. I was thrown into a sort of maze. But his 
next words recalled me. It was necessary, he went 
on, that he should still maintain his old position. 
His heart bled every moment; but he would sacrifice 
himself for them, and if need were, he would die with 
them; and when this time came he would lead them 
through flaming streets and over broken plutocrats to 
the universal community of everything. He drew a 
picture of the rapine that was to follow, which surpassed 
everything I had ever believed possible. When he sat 
down, his audience was a mob of lunatics. Insensible 
to the folly of the step I took, I sprang to my chair and 
369 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

began to protest. They hushed down for a second. I 
denounced Wringman as a scoundrel, a spy, a hound. 
With a roar they set upon me and swept me from my 
feet. Why I was not killed instantly, I hardly know 
to this day. Fortunately, their very fury impeded them. 
I knew that it was necessary to keep my feet, and I 
fought like a demon. I could hear Wringman’s voice 
high above the uproar harking them on. Suddenly a 
cry of “put him out” was raised close beside me. A 
pistol was brandished before my face; my assailants 
fell back a little, and I was seized and hustled to the 
door. I found a man I had noticed near me in the 
back part of the hall, who had sat with his coat collar 
turned up and his hat on, to be my principal ejector. 
With one hand he pushed me toward the entrance whilst, 
brandishing his revolver with the other, he defended me 
from the blows that were again aimed at me. But all 
the time he cursed me violently. 

“Not in here; let him go outside. Leave him to me 
— I'll settle him!” he shouted — and the crowd shouted 
also. So he bundled me to the door and followed me 
out, pushing others back and jerking the door to after 
him. 

On the outside I turned on him. I had been badly 
battered and my blood was up. I was not afraid of 
one man, even with a pistol. As I sprang for him, how- 
ever, he began to put up his weapon, chuckled, and 
dropped his voice. 

“Hold on — you’ve had a close call — get away from 
here.” 


370 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 


It was Langton, the detective. He followed me 
down the steps and out to the street, and then joined me. 

“Well?” he laughed, “what do you think of your 
friends ?” 

“That I have been a fool.” 

He smiled with deep satisfaction. “What were you 
doing in there?” I asked. 

“Looking after my friends. But I don’t feel it 
necessary to invite them to cut my throat. One good 
turn deserves another,” he proceeded. “You keep 
away from there or you’ll find yourself in a bad way. 
That Wringman ” 

“Is a scoundrel.” 

“Keep a lookout for him. He’s after you and he has 
powerful friends. Good night. I don’t forget a man 
who has done me a kindness — And I know that 
fellow.” 

He turned into a by-street. 

The next morning the papers contained an account 
of the proceedings with glaring headlines, the account 
in the Trumpet being the fullest and most sympathetic 
and giving a picture of the “great labor-leader, Wring- 
man, the idol of the workingman,” who had, by “his 
courage and character, his loftiness of purpose and 
singleness of aim, inspired them with courage to rise 
against the oppression of the grinding corporation 
which, after oppressing them for years, had attempted 
by a trick to delude them into an abandonment of the 
measures to secure, at least, partial justice, just as they 
were about to wring it from its reluctant hand.” 

371 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

It was a description which might have fitted an 
apostle of righteousness. But what sent my heart 
down into my boots was the republication of the in- 
serted portion of my article on the delayed train attack- 
ing Mr. Leigh. The action of the meeting was stated 
to be unanimous, and in proof it was mentioned that 
the only man who opposed it, a young man evidently 
under the influence of liquor, was promptly flung out. 
I knew that I was destined to hear more of that con- 
founded article, and I began to cast about as to how I 
should get around it. Should I go to Eleanor Leigh 
and make a clean breast of it, or should I leave it to 
occasion to determine the matter? I finally did the 
natural thing — I put off the decision. 

Miss Eleanor Leigh, who had worked hard all the 
day before despatching baskets to the hundreds of 
homes which her kind heart had prompted her to fill 
with cheer, came down to breakfast that morning with 
her heart full of gratitude and kindness toward all the 
world. She found her father sitting in his place with 
the newspapers lying beside him in some disorder and 
with a curious smile on his face. She divined at once 
that something had happened. 

“What is it?” she asked, a little frightened. 

For answer Mr. Leigh pushed a paper over to her 
and her eye fell on the headlines: 

HONEST LABORING MEN RESENT BRAZEN 
ATTEMPT AT BRIBERY 

LABOR LEADER’S GREAT APPEAL FOR JUSTICE 
LABOR DEMANDS ITS DUES 

372 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 


"Oh, father!” With a gasp she burst into tears 
and threw herself in her father’s arms. 

"That is the work of Canter and his partner, Mc- 
Sheen,” said Mr. Leigh grimly. 

It was not the only house in which the sending back 
of her baskets caused tears. In many a poor little tene- 
ment there was sore weeping because of the order — in 
not a few a turkey had not been known for years. Yet 
mainly the order was obeyed. 

Next day Mr. Leigh received in his office a notifica- 
tion that a deputation of the operatives on his road 
demanded to see him immediately. He knew that they 
were coming; but he had not expected them quite so 
soon. However, he was quite prepared for them and 
they were immediately admitted. They were a deputa- 
tion of five men, two of them elderly men, one hardly 
more than a youth, the other two of middle age. At 
their head was a large, surly man with a new black hat 
and a new overcoat. He was the first man to enter 
the room and was manifestly the leader of the party. 
Mr. Leigh invited them to take seats and the two 
older men sat down. Two of the others shuffled a 
little in their places and turned their eyes on their 
leader. 

"Well, what can I do for you?” inquired Mr. Leigh 
quietly. His good-humored face had suddenly taken 
on a cold, self-contained expression, as of a man who 
had passed the worst. 

Again there was a slight shuffle on the part of the 
others and one of the older men, rising from his seat 
373 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and taking a step forward, said gravely: “We have 
come to submit to you ” 

His speech, however, was instantly interrupted by 

the large man in the overcoat. “Not by a d d 

sight!” he began. “We have come to demand two 
things ” 

Mr. Leigh nodded. 

“Only two? What may they be, please?” 

“First, that you discharge a man named Kenneth 
McNeil, who is a non-union man ” 

Mr. Leigh’s eyes contracted slightly. 

“ — and secondly, that you give a raise of wages of 
fifteen per cent, to every man in your employ — and 
every woman, too.” 

“And what is the alternative, pray?” 

“A strike.” 

“By whom?” 

“By every soul in your employ, and, if necessary, by 
every man and woman who works in this city — and if 
that is not enough, by a tie-up that will paralyze you, 
and all like you.” 

Mr. Leigh nodded. “I understand.” 

A slight spark came into his eyes and his lips tightened 
just a shade, but when he spoke his voice was level and 
almost impersonal. 

“Will nothing less satisfy you?” he inquired. 

“Not a cent,” said the leader and two of the others 
looked at him with admiration. “We want justice.” 

Mr. Leigh, with his eye steadily on him, shook his 
head and a smile came into his eyes. “No, you 
374 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 

don’t want justice,” he said to the leader, “ you want 
money.” 

“Yes, our money.” 

Again Mr. Leigh shook his head slowly with his eyes 
on him. “No, not your money — mine. Who are 
you?” he demanded. “Are you one of the employees 
of this road?” 

“My name is Wringman and I am the head of this 
delegation.” 

“Are you an employee of this Company?” 

“I am the head of this delegation, the representative 
of the Associated Unions of this city, of which the Union 
on this road constitutes a part.” 

“I will not deal with you,” said Mr. Leigh, “but I 
will deal with you,” he turned to the other men. “I 
will not discharge the man you speak of. He is an 
exceptionally good man. I happen to know this of my 
own personal knowledge, and I know the reason he is 
not a Union man. It is because you kept him out of 
the Union, hoping to destroy him as you have destroyed 
other honest men who have opposed you.” He turned 
back to the leader. 

Wringman started to speak, but Mr. Leigh cut him 
short. 

“Not a word from you. I am dealing now with my 
own men. I know you. I know who your employer 
is and what you have been paid. You sold out your 
people in the East whom you pretended to represent, 
and now you have come to sell out these poor people 
here, on whose ignorance and innocence you trade and 
375 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

fatten. You have been against McNeil because he 
denounced you in the East. Your demand is prepos- 
terous,” he said, turning to the others. “It is an 
absolute violation of the agreement which you entered 
into with me not three months ago. I have that agree- 
ment here on my desk. You know what that says, 
that the scale adopted was to stand for so long, and if 
by any chance, any question should arise, it was to be 
arbitrated by the tribunal assented to by yourselves and 
myself. I am willing to submit to that tribunal the 
question whether any question has arisen, and if it has, 
to submit it for adjudication by them.” 

“We did not come here to be put off with any such 
hyp — ” began the leader, but before he had gotten his 
word out, Mr. Leigh was on his feet. 

“Stop,” he said. And his voice had the sharp crack 
of a rifle shot. “Not a word from you. Out of this 
office.” He pointed to the door and at the same moment 
touched the bell. “Show that man the door,” he said, 
“instantly, and never admit him inside of it again.” 

“Ah, I’m going,” sneered Wringman, putting on his 
hat, “but not because you ordered me.” 

“Yes, you are — because I ordered you, and if you 
don’t go instantly I will kick you out personally.” 

He stepped around the desk and, with his eyes blazing, 
walked quickly across the floor, but Wringman had 
backed out of the door. 

“For the rest of you,” he said, “you have my answer. 
I warn you that if you strike you will close the factories 
that now give employment to thousands of men and 
376 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 


young women. You men may be able to take care of 
yourselves; but you should think of those girls. Who 
will take care of them when they are turned out on the 
street ? I have done it heretofore — unless you are pre- 
pared to do it now, you had better consider. Go 
down to my box-factory and walk through it and see 
them, self-supporting and self-respecting. Do you 
know what will become of them if they are turned out ? 
Go to Gallagin’s Gallery and see. Go back to your 
work if you are men of sense. If not, I have nothing 
further to say to you.” 

They walked out and Mr. Leigh shut the door behind 
them. When he took his seat a deep gravity had settled 
on him which made him look older by years. 

The following day an order for a general strike on 
the lines operated by Mr. Leigh was issued, and the 
next morning after that not a wheel turned on his lines 
or in his factories. It was imagined and reported as only 
a question of wages between an employer and his men. 
But deep down underneath lay the secret motives of 
McSheen and Canter and their set who had been plot- 
ting in secret, weaving their webs in the dark — gambling 
in the lives of men and sad-eyed women and hungry 
children. The effect on the population of that section 
of the city was curious. Of all sad things on earth a 
strike is the saddest. And like other battles, next to a 
defeat the saddest scene is the field of victory. 

The shadow had settled down on us; the sunshine 
was gone. The temper of every one appeared to have 
been strained. The principle of Unionism as a system 
377 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

of protection and defence had suddenly taken form as 8 
system of aggression and active hostility. Class-feeling 
suddenly sprang up in open and armed array, and next 
came division within classes. The talk was all of force; 
the feeling all one of enmity and strife. The entire 
population appeared infected by it. Houses were 
divided against themselves; neighbors who had lived 
in friendliness and hourly intercourse and exchanged 
continual acts of kindness, discussed, contended, quar- 
relled, threatened, and fought or passed by on the other 
side scowling and embittered. Sweetness gave place 
to rancor and good-will to hate. 

Among those affected by the strike was the family 
of my old drummer. The change was as apparent in 
this little home, where hitherto peace and content 
had reigned supreme with Music to fill in the inter- 
vals and make joy, as in the immediate field of the 
strike. 

The whole atmosphere of happiness underwent a 
change, as though a deadly damp had crept in from the 
outside, mildewing with its baleful presence all within, 
and turning the very sunlight into gloom. Elsa had 
lost her place. The box-factory was closed. The 
house was filled with contention. The musicians 
who came around to smoke their big pipes and drink 
beer with old Loewen were like the rest, infected. 
Nothing appeared to please any longer. The director 
was a tyrant; the first violin a charlatan; the rest of 
the performers mostly fools or worse; and the whole 
orchestra “a fake.” 


378 


THE WALKING DELEGATE 


This was the talk I heard in the home when I 
stopped by sometimes of an evening on my way to my 
room, and found some of his friends arguing with him 
over their steins and pipes, and urging a stand against 
the director and a demand that he accede to their 
wishes. The old drummer himself stood out stoutly. 
The director had always been kind to him and to them, 
he insisted. He was a good man and took pride in 
the orchestra, as much pride as he himself did. But I 
could see that he was growing soured. He drank more 
beer and practised less. Moreover, he talked more of 
money, which once he had scarcely ever mentioned. 
But the atmosphere was telling; the mildew was 
appearing. And in this haunt of peace, peace was 
gone. 

I learned from Loewen one evening that in the event 
of the strike not being settled soon, there was a chance 
of a sympathetic strike of all trades, and that even the 
musicians might join in it, for they had “ grievances 
also.” 

“But I thought Music was not a trade, but a profes- 
sion, an art?” I said, quoting a phrase I had overheard 
him use. He raised his shoulders and threw out his 
hands palm upward. 

“Ach! it vas vonce.” 

“Then why is it not now?” 

“Ach I Who knows? Because they vill not haf it 
so. Ze music iss dead — ze harmony iss all gone — in ze 
people— in ze heart! Zere iss no more music in ze 
souls of ze people. It iss monee — monee — monee — • 
379 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

fight, fight, fight, all ze time! Who can gife ze divine 
strain ven ze heart is set on monee always ? ” 

"Who, indeed? I thought, and the more 1 thought 
of it the more clearly I felt that he had touched the cen- 
tral truth. 


380 


XXIX 


MY CONFESSION 

It is said that every woman has in her nature some- 
thing feline. I will not venture on so sweeping an 
assertion; but I will say that one of the sex was never 
excelled by any feline in her ability to torture and her 
willingness to tease the victim of her charms. 

When I met Eleanor Leigh next after the memorable 
session on the dusty steps, I could not tell for my life 
what were her feelings toward me. They were as 
completely veiled as though she had been accustomed 
from her infancy to enfold herself in impenetrable 
mystery. There was a subtle change in her manner 
profoundly interesting to me, but what it denoted I 
could not in the least discover, and every effort on my 
part to do so was frustrated with consummate art. 
She did not look at me and at moments appeared 
oblivious of my presence. She talked more than ever 
before of John Marvel, varied at times by admiring 
allusions to Leo Wolffert, until I almost began to hate 
them both. And all the while, she was so exasperatingly 
natural and innocent. A man may be a true friend to 
another, ready to serve him to the limit and may wish 
him all the happiness in the world, and yet may not 
desire the girl who has become his sun, moon and stars 
to appear to draw her light from his source. So, pres- 
ently, like any other worm, I turned. 

381 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“You appear to think that there is no one else in the 
world like John Marvel !” I said, fuming inwardly. 

“I do not. In a way, he stands by himself. Why, 
I thought you thought so too?” 

“Yes, of course — I do — I mean — I believe you are 
in — ” I hesitated to finish the sentence, and changed 
it. “I believe you think more of him than of any one 
else.” I did not really believe this — I wished her to 
deny it; but not she! I was playing at a game at 
which she was an expert from her cradle. A subtle 
change of expression passed over her face. She gave 
me a half glance, and then looked down. She ap- 
peared to be reflecting and as my eyes rested on her I 
became conscious of the same feeling of pleased wonder 
with which we gaze into a perfectly clear fountain whose 
crystal depths we may penetrate, but not fathom. 

“Yes, I think I do, in a way — I think him — quite 
wonderful. He appears to me the embodiment of 
truth — rugged and without grace — but so restful — so 
real — so sincere. I feel that if any great convulsion of 
Nature should occur and everything should be over- 
thrown, as soon as we emerged we should find Mr. 
Marvel there unchanged — like Truth itself, unchange- 
able. If ever I marry, it will be to some man like that 
] — simple and strong and direct always — a rock.” She 
gazed placidly down while this arrow quivered in my 
heart. I wanted to say, “Why, then, don’t you marry 
him?” But we were already too perilously near the 
edge for me to push matters further in that direction. 
I wished also to say, “Why don’t you marry me?” but 
382 


MY CONFESSION 

I was not conscious at the moment of any remarkable 
resemblance to a rock of strength. 

I recall her exact appearance as she waited. She 
happened to be arrayed that afternoon in a dark red 
dress, which fitted perfectly her slim, supple form, and 
her hat with a dark feather, and her dark hair about 
her brow gave her an air which reminded me of a red 
rose. It is not, however, the tint that makes the rose, 
but the rose itself. The rose is a rose, whether its petals 
be red or pink or white. And such she ever appeared 
to me. And the thorns that I found about her in no 
way detracted from her charms. Though I might have 
wished her less prone to show them, I did not find her 
pursuit the less delicious. 

Just after this I decided to move my quarters. Push- 
kin was beginning to come again to the old Drummer’s 
house, I did not know why — and though I did not meet 
him I could not bear to be under the same roof with 
him. I began to feel, too, the change in the house- 
hold. Elsa had begun to change somehow. Instead 
of the little carols and snatches like bird-songs that I 
used to hear before she went to her work, or in the even- 
ing when she returned, there was silence and some- 
times sighs, and in place of smiles, gloom. Her face 
lost its bloom. I wondered what the poor thing was 
distressing herself about. My young Swede, too, 
whom I still occasionally saw, appeared to have lost 
that breezy freshness and glow which always reminded 
me of country meadows and upland hay-fields, and 
looked downcast and moody. In place of his good- 
383 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

humored smile, his ruddy face began to wear a glower- 
ing, sullen look; and finally he disappeared. The 
mother, also, changed, and her voice, formerly so 
cheery and pleasant, had a sharper tone than I had 
ever heard in it before, and even the old drummer 
wore a cloudier air, wholly different from his old- 
time cheeriness. In fact, the whole house had changed 
from the nest of content that it had been, and I began 
to plan moving to a better neighborhood which my 
improving practice appeared to justify. The chief 
thing that withheld me was that radiant glimpse of 
Miss Leigh which I sometimes got of a morning as she 
came tripping along the street with her little basket in 
her hand, and her face sweet with high thoughts. It 
set me up all day; attended me to my office, and filled it 
with sunshine and hope. Moreover, I was beginning 
to find in my association with John Marvel a certain 
something which I felt I should miss. He calmed me 
and gave me resolution. It appeared strange that one 
whom I had always looked down on should so affect 
me, but I could no longer hide it from myself. But 
against this reason for remaining I set the improve- 
ment in my condition that a better lodging-place would 
indicate. After a time, my broad-shouldered young 
Swedish car-driver came back and I was glad I had 
remained. Several times in the evening I found him 
in the house dressed up with shiny hair, a very bright 
necktie, and a black coat, the picture of embarrassed 
happiness, and Elsa sitting up and looking prim and, 
I fancied, a trifle bored, though it might have been 
384 


MY CONFESSION 


only demureness. When I heard her singing again, I 
assumed that it was the latter expression, and not the 
former, which I had observed. However, I came in 
one night and heard Pushkin’s voice in the house and 
I was again at sea. Elsa in all the gayety of her best 
frock and ribbons, dashed by me as I mounted the 
stair to my room. 

The next evening I was walking home late. I came 
on two persons standing in the shadow in a secluded 
spot. They stopped talking as I passed and I thought 
I heard my name whispered. I turned and they were 
Elsa and Pushkin. What was he doing talking with her 
at that hour ? I came near walking up and denouncing 
him then and there; but I reflected and went on, and 
when, a few minutes later, Elsa came in very red and 
scared-looking, I congratulated myself on my self- 
restraint and sagacity. The next morning was rainy 
and black, and I took a street car; and found that the 
motorman was my blue-eyed young Swede, and that he 
was as dark and cloudy that morning as the day. 

That night, I heard Pushkin’s voice in the house 
again, and my old friend’s reply to him in a tone of 
expostulation. It was hard not to hear what Pushkin 
said, for the house was like a sounding-board. Pushkin 
was actually trying to borrow money — “more money,” 
and he gave as his reason the absolute certainty that 
with this stake — “just this one loan,” he should win an 
heiress — “One of the richest women in all the land,” 
he said. He urged as a reason why the old fellow 
should lend it to him, that they were both from the same 
385 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

country, and that his grandfather, when a Minister of 
the Court, had appreciated Loewen’s music and helped 
him to get his first place. 

“ And he was a shentlemans like me, and you nodings 
but a common trummer, hey? And — look here,” he 
said, “I am going to marry a great heiress, and then I 
shall not haf to borrow any more. I shall haf all de 
moneys I want — my pockets full, and den I vill pay you 
one — two — t’ree times for all you haf lend me, hein ? 
And now I, de shentlemans, comes to you, de common 
trummer, and calls you mine friend, and swear to pay 
you one — two — t’ree times over, certainlee you vill nod 
refuse me?” 

The rest was in the language of their own country. 
The argument had its effect; for I could hear the old 
drummer’s tone growing more and more acquiescent 
and the other’s laugh becoming more and more assured, 
and finally I knew by his voice that he had succeeded. 

I came near rising on the spot and going in and un- 
masking him. But I did not. I determined to wait 
until the next morning. 

Next morning, however, when I came down I received 
notice that my room was no longer for rent. The an- 
nouncement came to me from Mrs. Loewen, who gave 
it in her husband’s name, and appeared somewhat em- 
barrassed. I could not see her husband. He had gone 
out “ to meet a gentleman,” she said. Her manner was 
so changed that I was offended, and contented myself 
with saying I would leave immediately; and I did so, 
only leaving a line addressed to my old drummer to 
386 


MY CONFESSION 


explain my departure — I was sure that their action was 
in some way due to Pushkin. In fact, I was not sorry 
to leave though I did not like being put out. My only 
cause of regret was that I should miss my walk through 
the street where the young school-mistress was shining. 
I am not sure whether it was a high motive or a mean 
one which made me, as I left the house, say to Mrs. 
Loewen : 

“You are harboring a scoundrel in that man Pushkin. 
Keep your eyes open.” I saw a startled look in her eyes, 
but I did not wait to explain. 

I did not feel comfortable that evening as I walked 
through the streets to the better quarters which I had 
taken. I knew that John Marvel would have said less 
or more. I half made up my mind to go to John and 
lay the matter before him. Indeed, I actually deter- 
mined to do so. Other things, however, soon engrossed 
my thoughts and my time. I had to file my bill for my 
old ladies. And so this, like most of my good inten- 
tions, faded away. 

In fact, about this time I was so wholly taken up with 
my love for the entrancing ideal that I had clad in the 
lineaments of Miss Eleanor Leigh and adorned with her 
radiance and charm that I had no thought for anything 
that was not in some way related to her. My work was 
suddenly uplifted by becoming a means to bring me 
nearer to my ambition to win her. My reading took 
on new meaning in storing my mind with lore or equip- 
ping it to fit it for her service; the outward form of 
nature displayed new beauty because she loved it. The 
387 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

inward realm of reflection took on new grace because she 
pervaded it. In a word, the whole world became but 
the home and enshrinement of one being, about whom 
breathed all the radiance and sweetness that I found in 
it. All of which meant simply that I was truly in love. 
Content with my love, I lived in a Heaven whose charm 
she created. But Love has its winter and it often fol- 
lows close on its spring. I had played Fate again and 
waylaid her one afternoon as she was returning home 
from an excursion somewhere, and persuaded her to 
prolong her walk with an ease that lifted me quite out 
of myself, and I began to have aspirations to be very 
brave and good. I wished to be more like a rock, 
rugged and simple. 

We were walking slowly and had reached a park, 
and I guilefully led her by a roundabout path through 
a part where the shrubbery made it more secluded than 
the rest. I can see the spot now as then I saw it: a 
curving gray road sloping down under overhanging 
trees, and a path dappled with sunlight dipping into 
masses of shrubbery with a thrush glancing through 
them, like a little brown sprite playing hide-and-seek. 
As we neared a seat, I suggested that we should sit 
down and I was pleased at the way in which she yielded; 
quite as if she had thought of it herself. It was almost 
the first time that I had her quite to myself in fair sur- 
roundings where we were face to face in body and soul. 
I felt, somehow, as though I had made a great step up 
to a new and a higher level. We had reached together 
a new resting-place, a higher atmosphere; almost a new 
388 


MY CONFESSION 


land. And the surroundings were fresh to me in the 
city, for we had strayed out of the beaten track. I re- 
member that a placid pool, shaded by drooping willows 
and one great sycamore, lay at our feet, on which a 
couple of half-domesticated wild-fowl floated, their 
graceful forms reflected in the mirror below them. I 
pointed to one and said, “Alcyone,” and my heart 
warmed when she smiled and said, “Yes, at peace. 
‘The past unsighed for, and the future sure/” 

A quotation from a poet alw r ays pleases me. It is 
as if one found a fresh rose in the street, and where it 
comes from the lips and heart of a girl it is as though 
she had uttered a rose. 

“Are you fond of Wordsworth?” I asked. “He 
seems to me very spiritual.” 

“Yes. In fact, I think I am fond of all poetry. It 
lifts me up out of the grosser atmosphere of the world# 
which I enjoy, too, tremendously — and seems to place 
me above and outside of myself. Some, even, that I 
don’t understand. I seem to be borne on wings that I 
can’t see into a rarer atmosphere that I can only feel, 
but not describe.” 

“That,” I said, “as I understand it, is the province 
of poetry — and also, perhaps, its test.” 

“It has somewhat the same effect on me that saying 
my prayers has. I believe in something infinitely good 
and pure and blessed. It soothes me. I get into a 
better frame of mind.” 

“I should think your frame of mind was always ‘a 
better frame,’” I said, edging toward the personal 
389 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

compliment and yet feeling as though I were endanger- 
ing a beautiful dream. 

“Oh! you don’t know how worse I can be — how 
angry — how savage.” 

“Terribly so, I should think. You look like an 
ogress.” 

“I feel like one sometimes, too,” she nodded. “I 
can be one when I have the provocation.” 

“As — for example?” 

“Well, let me see? — Well, — for example, once — 
oh! quite a time ago — it was just after I met you— 
the very next day — (My heart bounded that she 
could remember the very next day after meeting 
me — and should set dates by that important event. 
I wanted to say, that is the beginning of my era; 
but I feared) — “I got into a dreadful passion — I was 
really ferocious.” 

“Terrible,” I jested. “I suppose you would have 
poisoned your slaves, like the old Roman Empress — 
What was her name?” 

“I was angry enough.” 

“And, instead, you gave the cat milk in place of 
cream, or did some such awful act of cruelty.” 

“ Not at all. I did nothing. I only burned inwardly 
and consumed myself.” 

“And pray, what was the offence that called forth 
such wrath, and who was the wretch who committed the 
crime ? ” 

“I had sufficient provocation.” 

“Of course.” 


390 


MY CONFESSION 


“No, I mean really ” 

“What?” 

“Why, it was a piece that appeared in one of the 
morning papers, a vile scurrilous sheet that had always 
attacked my father covertly; but this was the first open 
attack, and it was simply a huge lie. And it has been 
repeated again and again. Why, only the other day 
the same paper republished it with huge headlines and 
charged that my father was the cause of all the trouble 
in the city — my father, who is the best, the kindest, the 
most charitable man I ever knew — who has almost 
beggared himself trying to furnish facilities to the poor! 
Oh, I can’t bear it! I wish I had that man under my 
heel this minute! I would just grind him to powder! I 
would!” She turned, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks 
glowing with fervor, her face rigid with resolution, her 
white teeth shut together as if they were a trap to hold 
her enemy till death. “Give the cat milk! I could 
have poured molten metal down that man’s throat — 
cheerfully — yes, cheerfully.” 

It may be well believed that as she proceeded, the 
amusement died out of my face and mind. I turned 
the other way to keep her from seeing the change that 
must have come over me. I was thinking hard and I 
thought quickly, as, ’tis said, a drowning man thinks. 
Life and death both flashed before me — life in her pres- 
ence, in the sunlight of those last weeks, and the shadow 
of perpetual banishment. But one thing was certain. I 
must act and at once. I turned to her and was almost 
driven from my determination by the smile in her eyes, 
391 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

the April sunlight after the brief storm. But I seized 
myself and took the leap. 

“I wrote that piece.” 

She actually laughed. 

“Yes, I know you did.” 

“I did — seriously, I wrote it; but ” 

I saw the horror oversweep her face. It blanched 
suddenly, like the pallor on a pool when a swift cloud 
covers the sun, and her hand went up to her bosom with 
a sudden gesture as of pain. 

“Oh!” she gasped. The next second she sprang 
up and sped away like a frightened deer. 

I sprang up to follow her, to make my explanation to 
her; but though, after the first twenty steps, she stopped 
running and came down to a walk, it was still a rapid 
walk, and she was fleeing from me. I felt as though 
the gates of Paradise were closing on me. I followed 
her at a distance to see that she reached home safely, 
and with a vain hope that she might slacken her gait 
and so give me an excuse to make such explanation as I 
could. She, however, kept on, and soon after she passed 
beyond the park I saw a trap draw up beside the pave- 
ment, and, after a moment in which the driver was talk- 
ing to her, a young man sprang out and throwing the 
reins to a groom, joined her and walked on with her. 
In the light of the street lamp I recognized young Can- 
ter. I turned back cursing him ; but most of all, cursing 
myself. 

It has been well observed that there is no more valu- 
able asset which a young man can possess than a 
392 


MY CONFESSION 


broken heart. In the ensuing weeks I bore about with 
me if not a broken, at least a very much bruised and 
wounded one. It is a tragic fact in the course of mor- 
tality that a slip of a girl should have the power to shut 
the gates of happiness on a man. There were times 
when I rebelled against myself at being as big a fool as I 
knew myself to be, and endeavored to console myself by 
reverting to those wise bits of philosophy which our 
friends are always offering to us in our distress from 
their vantage ground of serene indifference. There were 
doubtless as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, 
but I was not after fishing — somehow I could not get a 
grasp on the idea that there were as lovely and attrac- 
tive girls in the world whom I was likely to meet as 
Eleanor Leigh, whom I now felt I had lost and might 
possibly never recover. 

I walked the streets for some time that evening in a 
very low state of mind, and Dix, as he trudged solemnly 
along with his head now against my leg, now a step in 
the rear, must have wondered what had befallen me. 
By midnight he looked as dejected as I felt. Even when 
at length, having formulated my letter, I took him out 
for a run, he did not cheer up as he usually did. That 
dog was very near a human being. He sometimes ap- 
peared to know just what went on in my mind. He 
looked so confoundedly sorry for me that night that I 
found it a real consolation. He had the heart of a 
woman and the eyes of an angel. The letter I wrote 
was one of the best pieces of advocacy I ever did. I set 
forth the facts simply and yet clearly and, I felt, strongly. 
393 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I told the plain truth about the paper, and I had the 
sense not to truckle, even while I expressed my regret 
that my work had been made the basis of the unauthor- 
ized and outrageous attack on her father and the lie 
about herself. With regard to the rights of the public 
and the arrogance of the class that ran the railways 
and other quasi-public corporations, I stood to my guns. 

This letter I mailed and awaited, with what patience 
I could command, her reply. Several days passed 
before I received any reply, and then I got a short, little 
cool note saying that she was glad to see that I felt an 
apology was due to her honored father, and was happy 
to know that I was not the author of the outrageous 
headlines. It was an icy little reply to a letter in 
which I had put my whole heart and I was in a rage 
over it. I made up my mind that I would show her 
that I was not to be treated so. If this was the way in 
which she received a gentleman’s full and frank amende, 
why, I would have no more to do with her. Anger is a 
masterful passion. So long as it holds sway no other 
inmate of the mind can enter. So long as I was angry 
I got on very well. I enjoyed the society of my friends 
and was much gayer to outward appearances than usual. 
I spent my evenings with Marvel and Wolffert or some 
of my less intimate companions, treated myself and 
them to the theatre, and made altogether a brave feint 
at bravery. But my anger died out. I was deeply in 
love and I fell back into a slough of despond. I thought 
often of confiding in John Marvel; but for some reason 
I could not bring myself to do so. 

394 


MY CONFESSION 


Adam driven suddenly out of Paradise with Eve left 
behind to the temptation of the serpent will give some 
idea of what I felt. I had the consolation of knowing 
that I had done the right thing and the only thing a 
gentleman could have done; but it was a poor consola- 
tion when I looked back on the happiness I had been 
having of late in the presence of Eleanor Leigh. And 
now between her and me was the flaming sword which 
turned every way. 

My heart gave a sudden drop into my boots one 
evening when I came across an item in the society 
columns of an afternoon paper, stating that it was be- 
lieved by the friends of the parties, that Mr. Canter 
would, before very long, lead to the altar one of the 
reigning belles of the city. I had always disliked 
“Society Columns/’ as the expression of a latter-day 
vulgarity. Since then I have detested them. 

I finally determined to try to get an interview with 
her whose absence clouded my world, and wrote her a 
note rather demanding one. As I received no reply to 
this, I called one evening to see her, if possible. The 
servant took in my card and a moment later returned 
with the statement that Miss Leigh was not at home. 
I was sure that it was not true. I came down the steps 
white with rage and also with a sinking of the heart. 
For I felt that it was all over between us. 

Those whom the Gods hate they first make mad, and 
it was by no accident that the passion of anger and the 
state of madness have come to be known by the same 
terms in our tongue. I have always held since then 
395 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

that every true lover has something of madness in 
him while the passion rages. I could cheerfully have 
stormed her house and carried Eleanor Leigh away. 
I recalled with grim envy William the Conqueror’s 
savage wooing when he met the Count’s daughter who 
had insulted him and rode her down, to receive soon 
afterward her full submission. This somewhat bar- 
barous form of proving one’s passion having passed out 
of vogue, I testified my spleen by falling into a state of 
general cynicism which I vented so generously that Wolf- 
fert finally asked me what had happened to me, and 
conjectured that I must have met with a cross in love. 
This recalled me sufficiently to myself to make me dis- 
semble my feelings, at least when in his presence. But 
I was certainly not rational for some time, and, sleeping 
or waking, I was haunted by the voice of the siren to 
whom I had fatally listened. What must I do in my 
folly the next time I met Miss Leigh, which I did quite 
accidentally one day on the street, but carry my head 
so high and bow so slightly that the next time we met, 
which was far from being as accidental as it might have 
appeared, she carried her head very high and did not bow 
at all. It was at some sort of a fair held for charity — 
and, ever since then I have hated them. Feeling as- 
sured that Eleanor Leigh would go, I attended myself 
with no more charitable object than to benefit a very 
wretched young lawyer, who was deeply conscious that 
he had made a fool of himself the last time he saw her. 
When I arrived, she was nowhere to be seen and I was 
on the point of leaving when, turning, I found her 
396 


MY CONFESSION 


standing in the midst of a group, her arms full of 
flowers, which she was selling. All I have to say is that 
since that time I have felt that Pluto was entirely justi- 
fied in that little affair in the Sicilian meadows. Think- 
ing to make the amende for my foolish airiness when I 
last saw her, I made my way up to Miss Eleanor Leigh; 
but as I approached and was in the very act of speaking 
to her she turned her back on me. It was a dead cut — 
a public insult, as humiliating as she could make it. 
I left the fair in a rage which lasted long. As I wan- 
dered through the forlorn streets that night I fed my 
heart on instances of woman’s inconstancy, and agreed 
with the royal lover that, “Mai habil qui s’y fie.” But 
it was a poor occupation and brought me little conso- 
lation. In his “Inferno,” Dante has given twelve 
different and successive circles in the depths of perdi- 
tion, each lower than the other. I passed through every 
one of them, and with no companion but my own folly. 


397 


XXX 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 

One may not hate his personal enemy; but one should 
hate an enemy to mankind. Had I known what fresh 
cause I had to hate Pushkin, I should not have been so 
supine. 

Since I began to work seriously my practice had in- 
creased, and I was so interested in working on my old 
ladies’ case that I was often detained at my office until 
late at night; and several times on my way home I 
observed a man acting somewhat curiously. He would 
keep along behind me, and if I turned back, would turn 
up a by-street or alley. .He was a big, brawny fellow, 
and I never saw him except at night. At first, it had 
made no impression on me; but at length, I noticed him 
so often that it suddenly struck me that he was follow- 
ing me. Rendered suspicious by my former experience, 
I began quietly to test him, and was having a very in- 
teresting time leading him around the town, when un- 
expectedly I discovered who he was. It was a singular 
feeling to find oneself shadowed; to discover that the 
man who has passed all others indifferently in the crowd 
has singled you out and follows you, bound to you by 
some invisible thread, tracking you through the laby- 
rinth of the thoroughfares; disregarding all the thou- 
sands who pass with their manifold interests and affairs, 
398 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


and that, singling you out with no known reason, he 
sticks to you through all the mazes of the multitudes. 
It comes to you gradually, dawning by degrees; then 
bursts on you suddenly with a light that astonishes 
and amazes. You are startled, frightened, incredulous; 
then you suspect, test, and are convinced ; you suddenly 
spring from obscurity and indifference into an object 
of interest to yourself; and then it becomes an intellec- 
tual game between hunter and hunted. New powers 
awaken, dormant since the days when man lived in the 
forest. 

When I awoke to the fact that the big man I had 
noticed was following me, for a moment the sensation 
was anything but pleasant. My hair almost stirred on 
my head. The next moment anger took the place of 
this feeling — indignation that one should dare to shadow 
me, to spy on my actions. I determined to confront 
the spy and thwart him. It was not difficult to do; he 
was an awkward fellow. The game was easier than I 
had supposed. One night when I had observed him 
following me, waiting until I reached a favorable spot, 
I turned quickly with my hand on my pistol, which I 
had put in my pocket, and faced him under a street 
lamp, stepping immediately in front of him and block- 
ing his way. 

“Otto!” 

With a growl he pulled his hat down closer over his 
brow and, stepping aside, passed on. I went home in 
a maze. Why should he follow me? I had not long 
to wait before I was enlightened. 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

One evening shortly afterward I was about to leave 
my office when there was a heavy step outside the door, 
and without a knock the door flew open, and the old 
Drummer entered. He looked so haggard and broken 
that I was on my feet in a second. 

“ What is the matter ? ” I gasped. “ Is any one dead ? ” 

“Vorser! Elsa? — Vere iss Elsa?” He stood before 
me like a wounded bison at bay, his eyes red with pas- 
sion. 

“Elsa! What!— ‘Where is she?’ Tell me V 

“Fhat haf you done vit my daughter?” 

“Your daughter! What do you mean?” I asked 
quietly. “I have not seen her since I left your house. 
Tell me what has occurred.” 

He soon saw that I knew nothing of her, and his face 
changed. Yet he hesitated. 

“Ze Count said — ” He began hesitatingly and 
stopped, thinking over something in his mind. 

It all came to me in a second. That scoundrel! It 
was all accounted for now — the change in the family 
toward me — the notice to leave — the spying of Otto. 
Count Pushkin had used me as a blind to cover his own 
wickedness. I suddenly burst out into a wrath which 
opened the old Drummer’s eyes. What I said of Push- 
kin cannot be repeated. What I proceeded to do was 
wiser. Why had I not pitched him out of the window 
that first evening, and so have ended his wicked career! 
I felt as if I were the cause of my friend’s wretchedness; 
of Elsa’s destruction. I sat the old fellow down in a 
chair, and made him tell me all the facts. 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


He informed me that for some time past he and her 
mother had noticed that Elsa had not been the same to 
Otto, and Otto had been unhappy, and had thrown up 
his place; then she had wished to break with him; but 
they would not let her. And of late she had been stay- 
ing out a good deal, visiting her friends, she said, and 
when they urged her to marry Otto, she had always 
begged off, and Otto was wretched, and they were all 
wretched. Count Pushkin had intimated that she was 
in love with me, and that I was the cause of her action. 
They could not believe it. 

“Yet, ze Count — ?” The old fellow was not able 
to go on. I relieved him and he took up the thread 
elsewhere, and told of Otto’s following me to find out. 
And two or three nights before there had been trouble; 
she had come in late, and her mother had scolded her, 
and insisted on knowing where she had been, and she 
had told her a lie — and they had insisted on her carrying 
out her agreement with Otto, to which she assented. 
And this morning she was missing. 

The old fellow broke down again. His grief was 
almost more for Otto than for himself. “He iss a 
good boy; he iss a good boy,” he repeated again and 
again. 

“Maybe, we were too harsh with her, sir, and now 
she may be dead.” He was overcome by grief. 

I did not believe she was dead; but I feared for her 
a worse fate. He still did not suspect Pushkin. The 
Count was his friend, he said; he had known him since 
his boyhood. 


401 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I will find her,” I said. And I knew I should if I 
had to choke the truth out of Pushkin’s throat. 

“If you do, I vill bless you, and her mother vill, too! ” 

I told him to go home and console her mother. 

“She has gone to see the preacher. He will know 
how to console her — and he will help her also.” 

“Why do you not go to the police?” 

“Oh!- Ze police! Ze police! Efery one say 'Ze 
police!’ Ze police vill nod do notings for me. I ham 
nod von Union-man. Zay haf zeir orders. Ven I hax 
ze police zay say, 'Don’t vorry, Elsa vill come home 
by-m-by, ven she get readee.’” 

I had heard the same thing said about the police, 
and recalled what I had heard McSheen say to Wring- 
man about keeping them from interfering. But I felt 
that they were probably right in their views about Elsa. 

I had recourse to my detective again, and gave him 
all the information I possessed. 

“Oh! We’ll find out w T here she is,” he said, with 
that inscrutably placid look on his face which I had 
learned was the veil under which he masked both his 
feelings and his purposes. “You can tell her father 
she isn’t dead.” This in answer to the old man’s sug- 
gestion that she had been murdered, which I had re- 
peated. Then he added, “But there are worse things 
than death.” 

His eyes glistened and he buttoned up his coat in a 
way he had when there was any sharp work on hand. 
It always reminded me of a duellist. In a few days he 
had a clew to the lost girl, and justified my suspicions. 
402 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 

It was as I feared. Pushkin had inveigled her from 
her home and had taken her to a house which, if not 
precisely what I apprehended, was not less vile. It 
was one of those doubly disreputable places which, 
while professing to be reasonably respectable, is really 
more dangerous than the vilest den. The girl was pos- 
sibly not actually at the place now, but had been there. 
Getting some suspicion of the place, she had insisted 
on leaving, but the woman of the house, said Langton, 
knew where she was. 

“She is a hard one to handle. She has protection.” 

“Of the police ?” 

“ Of those who control the police. She has powerful 
friends.” 

“I don’t care how powerful they are, I will get that 
girl,” I said. 

I hesitated what to do. I had not wholly abandoned 
hope of making up my trouble with Eleanor Leigh. I 
did not wish my name to be mixed up in a scandal 
which probably would get into the papers. I deter- 
mined to consult John Marvel, and I said so to Langton. 

“You mean the preacher? Won’t do any harm. 
He’s straight. He’s helping to hunt for her, too. I 
saw him iust after I located her, and he had already 
heard.” 

I determined to go and see him, and told Langton to 
keep on following up his clew. When I went to Mar- 
vel’s house, however, he was not at home. He had 
been away all day, since early morning, the girl who 
opened the door told me. I went to the police station. 
403 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Marvel had been there and made a complaint about a 
house, and they were going to send a man around to 
investigate. 

He was a terrible crank, that preacher was, but all 
the same he was a good sort of a fellow, the officer said. 
Some people thought he was too meddlesome and 
mixed up too much with affairs that did not concern 
him, but for his part, he had seen him do things and go 
where it took a man to go. As the officer was going 
in a short while, I determined to accompany him, so 
waited an hour or so till he was detailed, and then 
set out. When we arrived the place, for all outward 
signs of evil, might have been a home for retired 
Sunday-school teachers — a more decent and respect- 
able little hotel in a quiet street could not have been 
found in town. Only the large woman, with height- 
ened complexion, Mrs. Snow, who, at length, appeared 
in answer to the summons of the solemn officer, seemed 
to be excited and almost agitated. She was divided 
between outraged modesty and righteous indignation. 
The former was exhibited rather toward me, the latter 
toward the officer. But this was all. She swore by all 
the Evangelists that she knew nothing of the girl, and 
with yet more vehemence that she would have justice 
for this outrage. She would “report the officer to the 
Captain and to his Honor the Mayor, and have the 
whole — th precinct fired.” The officer was very 
apologetic. All we learned was that, “A lady had 
been brought there by a gentleman who said he was 
her husband, but she had refused to let her in. She 
404 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


did not take in people she did not know.” As there 
was nothing to incriminate her, we left with apologies. 

The strongest ally a man can enlist in any cause is 
a clear-headed, warm-hearted woman. In all moral 
causes they form the golden guard of the forces that 
carry them through. John Marvell absence when 1 
called to consult him was due to his having got on the 
trace of Elsa. Another of my frienSs had also got on her 
trace, and while I was hesitating and thinking of my 
reputation, they were acting. As soon as he learned of 
Elsa’s disappearance he consulted the wisest counsellor 
he knew. He went, with rare good sense, to Eleanor 
Leigh. He had a further reason for going to her than 
merely to secure her aid. He had heard my name con- 
nected with the affair, and old John had gone to set me 
straight with her. He did not know of the trouble at 
the Charity Fair, and Miss Leigh did not enlighten him. 
Miss Eleanor Leigh, having learned through Marvel 
that the Loewens were in great trouble, as soon as her 
school was out that day, went to the Loewens’ house to 
learn what she could of the girl, with a view to render- 
ing all the aid she could. A new force had been aroused 
in her by John Marvel. Precisely what she learned I 
never knew, but it was enough, with what she had 
gleaned elsewhere, to lead to action. What she had 
learned elsewhere pointed to a certain place in town as 
one where she might secure further information. It 
was not a very reputable place — in fact, it was a very 
disreputable place — part saloon, part dance-hall, part 
everything else that it ought not to have been. It was 
405 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

one of the vilest dens in this city of Confusion, and the 
more vile because its depths were screened beneath a 
mass of gilding and tinsel and glitter. It lay on one of 
the most populous streets and, dazzling with electric 
lights, furnished one of the showiest places on that 
street. It was known as “The Gallery,” an euphem- 
ism to cover a line of glaring nude figures hung on the 
walls, which, by an aAangement of mirrors, were multi- 
plied indefinitely. Its ostensible owner was the same 
Mr. Mick Raffity, who kept the semi-respectable saloon 
opening on the alley at the back of the building where I 
had my office. Its keeper was a friend of Mr. Raffity’s, 
by the name of Gallagin, a thin, middle-aged person 
with one eye, but that an eye like a gimlet, a face im- 
pervious to every expression save that which it habitu- 
ally wore: a mixture of cunning and ferocity. 

The place was crowded from a reasonable hour in 
the evening till an unreasonable hour in the morning, 
and many a robbery and not a few darker crimes were 
said to have been planned, and some perpetrated, 
around its marble tables. 

At the side, in a narrow street, was a private entrance 
and stairway leading to the upper stories, over the door 
of which was the sign, “Ladies’ Entrance.” And at 
the rear was what was termed by Mr. Gallagin, a 
“Private Hotel.” 

Young women thronged the lower floor at all hours 
of the night, but no woman had ever gone in there and 
not come out a shade worse, if possible, than when she 
entered. The Salvation Army had attempted the clos- 
406 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


ing of this gilded Augean Stable, but had retired 
baffled. Now and then a sporadic effort had been 
made in the press to close or reform it, but all such at- 
tempts had failed. The place was “protected.” The 
police never found anything amiss there, or, if they did, 
were promptly found to have something amiss with 
their own record. To outward appearance it was on 
occasions of inspection as decorous as a meeting-house. 
It was shown that the place had been offered for Sunday 
afternoon services, and that such services had actually 
been held there. In fact, a Scripture-text hung on the 
wall on such occasions, while close at hand hung the 
more secular notice that “No excuse whatever would 
be taken if one lady or gentleman took another lady’s 
pr gentleman’s hat or wrap.” 

This gilded saloon on the evening of the day I called 
on John Marvel was, if anything, more crowded than 
usual, and into it just as it was beginning to grow gay 
and the clouds of cigarette and cigar smoke were begin- 
ning to turn the upper atmosphere to a dull gray; 
just as the earlier hum of voices was giving place to 
the shrieking laughter and high screaming of half- 
sodden youths of both sexes, walked a young woman. 
She was simply dressed in a street costume, but there 
was that about her trim figure, erect carriage, and grave 
face which marked her as different from the gaudy 
sisterhood who frequented that resort of sin, and as she 
passed up through the long room she instantly at- 
tracted attention. 

The wild laughter subsided, the shrieks died down, 

407 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

and as if by a common impulse necks were craned to 
watch the newcomer, and the conversation about the 
tables suddenly hushed to a murmur, except where it 
was broken by the outbreak of some half-drunken 
youth. 

“Who is she? What is she?” were questions asked 
at all tables, along with many other questions and 
answers, alike unprintable and incredible. The gen- 
eral opinion expressed was that she was a new and 
important addition to the soiled sisterhood, probably 
from some other city or some country town, and com- 
ments were freely bandied about as to her future desti- 
nation and success. Among the throng, seated at one 
of the tables, was a large man with two bedizened 
young women drinking the champagne he was freely 
offering and tossing off himself, and the women stopped 
teasing him about his diamond ring, and rallied him 
on his attention to the newcomer, as with head up, lips 
compressed, eyes straight before her, and the color 
mounting in her cheek, she passed swiftly up the room 
between the tables and made her way to the magnifi- 
cent bar behind which Mr. Gallagin presided, w th his 
one eye ever boring into the scene before him. Walking 
up to the bar the stranger at once addressed Mr. 
Gallagin. 

“Are you the proprietor here?” 

“Some folks says so. What can I do for yer?” 

“I have come to ask if there is not a young woman 
here — ?” She hesitated a moment, as the barkeepers 
all had their eyes on her and a number of youths had 
408 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


come forward from the tables and were beginning to 
draw about her. Mr. Gallagin filled in the pause. 

“Quite a number, but not one too many. In fact, 
there is just one vacancy, and I think you are the very 
peach to fill it.” His discolored teeth gleamed for a 
second at the murmur of approval which came from 
the men who had drawn up to the bar. 

“I came to ask,” repeated the girl quietly, “if there 
is not a young woman here named Elsa Loewen.” 

The proprietor’s one eye fixed itself on her with an 
imperturbable gaze. “ Well, I don’t know as there is,” 
he drawled. “You see, there is a good many young 
women here, and I guess they have a good many names 
among ’em. But may I ask you what you want with 
her?” 

“I want to get her and take her back to her home.” 

Mr. Gallagin’s eye never moved from her face. 

“Well, you can look around and see for yourself,” 
he said quietly. 

“No, I don’t think she would be here, but have you 
not a sort of a hotel attached to your place ? ” 

“Oh! Yes,” drawled Mr. Gallagin. “I can furnish 
you a room, if you have any friends — and if you haven’t 
a friend, I might furnish you one or two of them.” 

“No, I do not wish a room.” 

“Oh!” ejaculated the proprietor. 

“I wish to see Elsa Loewen, and I have heard that 
she is here.” 

“Oh! you have, and who may be your informant?” 
demanded the barkeeper, coldly. “I’d like to know 
409 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

what gentleman has sufficient interest in me to make 
me the subject of his conversation.” 

“I cannot give you my informant, but I have infor- 
mation that she is here, and I appeal to you to let me 
see her.” 

“To me? You appeal to me?” Mr. Gallagin put 
his hand on his thin chest and nodded toward him- 
self. 

“Yes, for her mother; her father. She is a good 
girl. She is their only daughter. They are distracted 
over her — disappearance. If you only knew how ter- 
rible it is for a young girl like that to be lured away 
from home where every one loves her, to be deceived, 
betrayed, dragged down while ” 

The earnestness of her tone more than the words she 
uttered, and the strangeness of her appeal in that place, 
had impressed every one within reach of her voice, and 
quite a throng of men and women had left the tables 
and pressed forward listening to the conversation, and 
for the most part listening in silence, the expression on 
their faces being divided between wonder, sympathy, 
and expectancy, and a low murmur began to be audi- 
ble among the women, hardened as they were. Mr. 
Gallagin felt that it was a crucial moment in his busi- 
ness. Suddenly from under the fur came the fierce 
claw and made a dig to strike deep. 

“To hell with you, you d d ! I know you 

and your d d sort — I know what you want, and you’ll 

get it in one minute. Out of my place, or I’ll pitch you 
in the gutter or into a worse hole yet!” He made a 
410 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


gesture with one hand such as a cat makes with its 
claws out. 

A big man with a hard gleam in his eye moved along 
the edge of the bar, his face stolid and his eyes on the 
newcomer, while the throng fell back suddenly and 
left the girl standing alone with a little space about her, 
her face pale, and her mouth drawn close under the un- 
expected assault. In another second she would, with- 
out doubt, have been thrown out of the place, or possibly 
borne off to that worse fate with which she had been 
threatened. But from the throng to her side stepped 
out a short, broad-shouldered man, with a sodden face. 

“ Speak her soft, Galley, you! You know 

who she is ! That is the Angel of the Lost Children. 

Speak her soft or you! you’ll have to throw 

me out, too.” The sodden face took on suddenly a 
resolution that gave the rough a look of power, the 
broad shoulders were those of an athlete, and the steady 
eye was that of a man to be reckoned with — and such 
was “Red Talman” when aroused. 

The name he had given was repeated over the throng 
by many, doubtless, who had not heard of her, but 
there were others who knew, and told of the work that 
Eleanor Leigh had been doing in quarters where any 
other woman of her class and kind had never showed 
her face; of help here and there; a hand lent to lift a 
fallen girl; of succor in some form or another when all 
hope appeared to be gone. 

It was a strange champion who had suddenly stepped 
forward into the arena to protect her, but the girl felt 
411 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

immediately that she was safe. She turned to her 
champion. 

“I thank you,” she said simply. “If you wish to 
help me, help me get hold of this poor girl whom I have 
come for. Ask him to let me see her, if only for one 
moment, and I may save her a life of misery.” 

The man turned to the proprietor. “Why don’t 
you let her see the girl?” he said. 

Gallagin scowled at him or winked, it could scarcely 

be told which. “What the is it to you? Why 

can’t you keep your mouth for your own business 
instead of interfering with other folks? You have 
seen trouble enough doing that before.” 

“Let her see the girl.” 

“What business is it of yours whether I do or not?” 

“Just this — that when I was away and my wife was 
starvin’, and you never givin’ her nothin’, and my little 
gal was dyin’, this here lady came there and took care 
of ’em — and that’s what makes it my business. I 
don’t forgit one as helped me, and you know it.” 

“Well, I’ll tell you this, there ainH no gal of that 
name here. I don’t know what she’s talkin’ about.” 

“Oh! Come off! Let her see the gal.” 

“You go up there and look for yourself,” said the 
proprietor. “Take her with you if you want to and 
keep her there.” 

“Shut your mouth, d n you!” said Talman. He 

turned to Miss Leigh. 

“She ain’t here, lady. He’d never let me go up 
there if she was there. But I’ll help you find her if 
412 



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SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


you’ll tell me about her. You can go home now. I’ll 
see you safe.” 

“I am not afraid,” said the girl. “My carriage is 
not far off,” and with a pleasant bow and a word of 
renewed supplication to the proprietor, whose eye was 
resting on her with a curious, malign expression, she 
turned and passed back through the room, with her gaze 
straight ahead of her, while every eye in the room was 
fastened on her; and just behind her walked the squatty 
figure of Red Talman. A few doors off a carriage 
waited, and as she reached the door she turned and 
gave him the name of the girl she was seeking, with a 
little account of the circumstances of her disappear- 
ance and of her reason for thinking she might be at 
Gallagin’s place. She held out her hand to the man 
behind her. 

“I don’t know your name or what you alluded to, 
but if I can ever help any of your friends I shall be very 
glad to do what I can for them.” 

“My name’s Talman. You’ve already done me a 
turn.” 

“‘Talman!’ ‘Red — ’! Are you the father of my 
little girl?” 

“That’s me.” 

“What I said just now I mean. If you want help, 
let me know, or go and see Mr. Marvel, the preacher, 
on the West side — you know him — and you will get it. 
And if you can find anything of that poor girl I shall be 
eternally grateful to you. Good-night.” 

“Good-night, ma’am.” 


413 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

The man watched the carriage until it had disap 
peared around the corner and then he returned to th( 
saloon. He walked up to the bar, and Gallagin ad- 
vanced to meet him. 

“If you are lyin’ to me,” he said, “you better not let 
me know, but you better git that gal out of your place 
and into her home, or the first thing you know there 
will be a sign on that door.” 

The other gave a snarl. 

“I am puttin’ you wise,” said Talman. “There’s 
trouble brewing. That’s big folks lookin’ for her.” 

“I guess Coll McSheen is somethin’ in this town 
still. But for him you wouldn’ be walkin’ around.” 

“But for — ! He’s a has-been,” said Talman. “He’s 
shot his bolt.” 

“You ought to know,” sneered Gallagin. 

“I do.” 

“That the reason you take no more jobs?” 

“It’s a good one.” 

“Have a drink,” said Gallagin, with a sudden change 
of manner, and he did him the honor to lift a bottle and 
put it on the bar. 

“I ain’t drinkin’. I’ve got work to do.” 

“Who’s your new owner?” 

“Never mind, he’s a man. Send the gal home or 
you’ll be pulled before twenty-four hours.” 

“You’re runnin’ a Sunday-school, ain’t you?” 

“No, but I’m done workin’ for some folks. That’s 
all. So long. Git her out of your house if she’s here 
Git her out of your house.” 

414 


SEEKING ONE THAT WAS LOST 


He walked down the room, and as he passed a table 
the big man with the two women accosted him. 

“Who's your friend?" he asked with a sneer. It 
was Wringman, who having finished his labors for the 
day in proving to famished strikers how much better 
off they were than formerly, was now refreshing himself 
in one of his favorite haunts, at his favorite occupation. 

Talman stopped and looked at him quietly, then he 
said: “That man up there" — with his thumb over his 
shoulder he pointed toward the bar — “that man there 
has been a friend of mine in the past and he can ask me 
questions that I don't allow folks like you to ask me. 
See? I have known a man to git his neck broke by 
buttin' too hard into other folks' business. See?" 

Wringman, with an oath, started to get out of his 
chair, but his companions held him down, imploring 
him to be quiet, and the next moment the big bouncer 
from the bar was standing beside the table, and after 
a word with him Talman made his way through the 
crowd and walked out of the door. 

The bar-keeper beckoned to his bouncer and the two 
held a muttered conference at the end of the bar. “ He's 
gittin' too big for his breeches," said the bar-keeper as 
he turned away. “ He’ll git back there if he fools with 
me and pretty quick too." 


415 


XXXI 


JOHN MARVEL’S RAID 

Had any one of the many detectives who were en- 
gaged in all sorts of work, legitimate and otherwise, in 
the limits of that great city, been watching among the 
half-sodden group of loafers and night-walkers who 
straggled through the side street on which opened the 
“Ladies’ Entrance” of Mr. Gallagin’s establishment 
along toward the morning hours, he might have seen a 
young woman brought from the door of the “ ladies’ 
entrance,” supported by two persons, one a man and one 
a woman, and bodily lifted into a disreputable looking 
hack of the type known as a “night-hawk,” while the 
dingy passers-by laughed among themselves and dis- 
cussed how much it had taken to get the young woman 
as drunk as that. But there was no detective or other 
officer on that street at that hour, and but for the fact 
that a short, squatty man, nursing a grievance against 
an old pal of his, and turning over in his mind the un- 
expected kindness of a young woman and a threadbare 
preacher in an hour when all the rest of the world — 
even his pals in iniquity — appeared to have turned 
against him, was walking through the street with a 
dim idea of beginning a quarrel with the man who 
had deserted him, the destination of the drunken 
woman might never have been known. Red Talman’s 
416 


JOHN MARVEL'S RAID 


heart, however, callous as it was, foul with crimes 
too many and black to catalogue, had one single spot 
into which any light or feeling could penetrate. This 
was the secret corner, sacred to the thought of his one 
child, a little girl who alone of all the world truly 
thought him a good man. For John Marvel, who had 
helped his wife and child when he lay in prison under 
long sentence, and had been kind to him, he enter- 
tained a kindly feeling, but for the young lady who had 
taken his little girl and taught her and made her happy 
when the taunts of other children drove her from the 
public school, he had more than a liking. She and 
John Marvel alone had treated him in late years as a 
man and a friend, and a dim hope began to dawn in his 
mind that possibly he might yet be able to save his girl 
from the shame of ever truly knowing what he had been. 

So, when the man, with his hat over his eyes, who 
had helped put the young woman in the carriage, re- 
entered the house and the drunken woman was driven 
off with her companion, Red Talman, after a moment 
of indecision, turned and followed the cab. He was 
not able to keep up with it, as, though the broken-kneed 
horses went at a slow gait, they soon outdistanced him, 
for he had to be on the watch for officers; but he knew 
the vehicle, and from the direction it took he sus- 
pected its destination. He turned and went back toward 
Gallagin’s. When he reached the narrow, ill-lighted 
street, on which the side entrance opened, he slipped 
into the shadow at a corner and waited. An hour later 
the hack returned, a woman got out of it and, after a 
417 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

short altercation with the driver, ran across the pave- 
ment and entered the door. As the hack turned, Red 
Talman slipped out of the shadow and walked up to 
the front wheel. 

“Which way you goin’ ?” he asked the driver, who 
recognized him. 

“Home,” he said. 

“Gimme a ride?” 

“Git up.” He mounted beside him and drove with 
him to a dirty saloon in a small street at some little dis- 
tance, where he treated him and let him go. A half- 
hour afterward he rang the bell of the family hotel which 
I had visited with an officer the day before, and asked 
to see the woman of the house. She could not be seen, 
the woman said who opened the door. 

“Well, give her this message, then. Tell her that 
Galley says to take good care of the girl that he just 
sent around here and to keep her dark.” 

“Which one?” demanded the woman. 

“The one as was doped, that come in the hack.” 

“All right.” 

“That’s all,” said Talman, and walked off. 

The self-constituted detective pondered as he passed 
down through the dark street. How should he use his 
information ? Hate, gratitude, and the need for money 
all contended in his breast. He had long harbored a 
feeling of revenge against McSheen and Raffity and his 
understrapper, Gallagin. They had deserted him in 
his hour of need and he had come near being hanged 
for doing their work. Only his fear of McSheen’s 
418 


JOHN MARVEL'S RAID 


power had kept him quiet. The desire for revenge 
and the feeling of gratitude worked together. But 
how should he use his knowledge ? It behooved him to 
be prudent. Coll McSheen and Mick Raffity and Mel 
Gallagin were powerful forces in the world in which he 
moved. They could land him behind the bars in an 
hour if they worked together. At last he solved it! 

He would go to a man who had always been kind to 
him and his. Thus it was, that just before light that 
morning John Marvel was awakened by a knock on his 
door. A man was below who said a sick person needed 
his services. When he came down into the street in the 
dim light of the dawning day, there was a man waiting 
in the shadow. He did not recognize him at first, but 
he recalled him as the man told the object of his visit 
at such an hour, and John was soon wide-awake. 
Still he could scarcely believe the story he was told. 

“Why, she can't be there," he protested. “A friend 
of mine was there to look for her day before yesterday 
with the police, and she was not there." 

“She is there now, and if you pull the place you'll get 
her all right," asserted the other. 

“I'll go there myself." 

“No use goin' by yourself." 

'‘I'll get the police " 

“The police ! " The other laughed derisively. “ They 
don't go after the Big Chief's friends — not when he 
stands by 'em.” 

“The ‘Big Chief'?" 

“Coll McSheen." 


419 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Mr. McSheen!” 

“He’s it!” 

“It? What? I don’t understand.” 

“Well, don’t bring me into this.” 

“I will not.” 

“He’s at the bottom of the whole business. He’s the 
lawyer ’t gives the dope and takes care of ’em. He owns 
the place — ’t least, Mick Raffity and Gallagin and 
Smooth Ally own the places; and he owns them. He 
knows all about it and they don’t turn a hand without 
him. Oh! I know him — I know ’em all!” 

“You think this is the girl the lady was looking 
for?” 

“I don’t know. I only know she went there, and 
Gallagin showed his teeth, and then I called him down 
and got the gal out. I skeered him.” 

“Well, we’ll see.” 

“Well, I must be goin’. I’ve told you. Swear you 
won’t bring me into it. Good-night.” 

“I will not.” 

The man gazed down the street one way, then turned 
and went off in the other direction. John was puzzled, 
but a gleam of light came to him. Wolff ert! Wolff ert 
was the man to consult. What this man said was just 
what Wolff ert had always insisted on : that “ the White 
Slave traffic” was not only the most hideous crime now 
existing on earth, but that it was protected and pro- 
moted by men in power in the city, that it was, indeed, 
international in its range. He remembered to have 
heard him say that a law had been passed to deal with 
420 


JOHN MARVEL’S RAID 


it; but that such law needed the force of an awakened 
public conscience to become effective. 

Thus it was, that that morning Wolffert was aroused 
by John Marvel coming into his room. In an instant 
he was wide-awake, for he, too, knew of the disappear- 
ance of Elsa, and of our fruitless hunt for her. 

“But you are sure that this woman is Elsa?” he 
asked as he hurriedly dressed. 

“No — only that it is some one.” 

“So much the better — maybe.” 

An hour later Wolffert and John Marvel were in a 
lawyer’s office in one of the great new buildings of the 
city, talking to a young lawyer who had recently become 
a public prosecutor, not as a representative of the city, 
but of a larger power, that of the nation. He and Wolf- 
fert were already friends, and Wolffert had a little 
while before interested him in the cause to which he 
had for some time been devoting his powers. It 
promised to prove a good case, and the young attorney 
was keenly interested. The bigger the game, the bet- 
ter he loved the pursuit. 

“Who’s your mysterious informant, Mr. Marvel?” 
he asked. 

“That I cannot tell you. He is not a man of good 
character, but I am sure he is telling me the truth.” 

“We must make no mistakes — we don’t want these 
people to escape, and the net will catch bigger fish, I 
hope, than you suspect. Why not tell ? ” 

“I cannot.” 

“Well, then I shall have to get the proof in some 
421 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

other way. I will act at once and let you hear 
from me soon. In fact, I have a man on the case 
now. I learned of it yesterday from my cousin, you 
know. She is deeply interested in trying to break up 
this vile business, and a part of what you say I 
already knew. But the clews lead to bigger doors 
than you dream of.” 

John and Wolffert came away together and decided 
on a plan of their own. Wolffert was to come to see 
me and get Langton interested in the case, and John 
was to go to see Langton to send him to me. He caught 
Langton just as he was leaving his house to come to 
my office and walked a part of the way back with him, 
giving him the facts he had learned. He did not know 
that Langton was already on the case, and the close- 
mouthed detective never told anything. 

When they parted, Langton came to my office, and 
together we went to the district attorney’s, who, after 
a brief talk, decided to act at once, and accordingly 
had warrants issued and placed in the hands of his 
marshal. 

“I have been trying for some time to get at these 
people,” he said, “and I have the very man for the 
work — an officer whom Coll McSheen turned out for 
making trouble for the woman who keeps that house.” 

Aroused by my interest in the Loewens and by what 
Langton had told me of Miss Leigh’s daring the night 
before, I secured the marshal’s consent to go along with 
them, the district attorney having, indeed, appointed 
me a deputy marshal for the occasion. 

422 


JOHN MARVEL’S RAID 


The marshal’s face had puzzled me at first, but I 
soon recognized him as the officer I had met once 
while I watched a little child’s funeral. “They were 
too many for me,” he said in brief explanation. “Mrs. 
Collis had me turned out. She had a pull with the 
Big Chief. And when I went for his friend, Smooth 
Ally, he bounced me. But I’m all right now, Mr. 
Semmes knows me, and Coll McSheen may look out. I 
know him.” 

I do not know what might have happened had we 
been a little later in appearing on the scene. As, 
after having sent a couple of men around to the back 
of the block, we turned into the street we saw three or 
four men enter the house as though in a hurry. We 
quickened our steps, but found the door locked, and the 
voices within told that something unusual was going on. 
The high pitched voice of a woman in a tirade and the 
low growls of men came to us through the door, fol- 
lowed by the noise of a scuffle and the smashing of 
furniture; a thunderous knock on the door, however, 
brought a sudden silence. 

As there was no response either to the knock or ring, 
another summons even more imperative was made, and 
this time a window was opened above, a woman thrust 
her head out and in a rather frightened voice asked 
what was wanted. The reply given was a command 
to open the door instantly, and as the delay in obeying 
appeared somewhat unreasonable, a different method 
was adopted. The door was forced with an ease 
wliich gave me a high idea of the officer’s skill. Within 
423 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

everything appeared quiet, and the only circumstance 
to distinguish the house from a rather tawdry small 
hotel of a flashy kind was a man and that man, John 
Marvel, with a somewhat pale face, his collar and vest 
tom and a reddish lump on his forehead, standing 
quietly in the doorway of what appeared to be a sitting- 
room where the furniture had been upset, and the 
woman whom I had formerly seen when I visited the 
place with a police officer, standing at the far end of the 
hall in a condition of fright bordering on hysterics. I 
think I never saw men so surprised as those in our 
party were to find a preacher there. It was only a 
moment, however, before the explanation came. 

“ She’s here, I believe,” said John, quietly, “ unless 
they have gotten her away just now.” 

His speech appeared to have unchained the fury of 
the woman, for she swept forward suddenly like a 
tornado, and such a blast of rage and abuse and hate 
I never heard pour from a woman’s lips. Amid tears 
and sobs and savage cries of rage, she accused John 
Marvel of every crime that a man could conceive of, 
asserting all the while that she herself was an innocent 
and good woman and her house an absolutely proper 
and respectable home. She imprecated upon him 
every curse and revenge which she could think of. I 
confess that, outraged as I was by the virago’s attack, 
I was equally surprised by John Marvel’s placidness 
and the officer’s quiet contempt. The only thing that 
John Marvel said was: 

“There were some men here just now.” 

424 


JOHN MARVEL’S RAID 


“Liar! Liar! Liar!” screamed the woman. “You 
know you lie. There is not a man in this house except 
that man, and he came here to insult me — he who comes 
here all the time — you know you do, !” 

“ Where are the men ? ” demanded the marshal quietly, 
but he got no answer except her scream of denial. 

“They were after me,” said John, “but when you 
knocked on the door they ran off.” 

Another outpour of denial and abuse. 

“ Come on, men,” said the marshal. 

John Marvel had been troubled by no such scruples 
as had appeared to me. He was not afraid for his 
reputation as I had been for mine. And on his way 
home he had had what he felt to be, and what, far be 
from me to say was not, a divine guidance. A sudden 
impulse or “call” as he termed it, had come to him to 
go straight to this house, and, having been admitted, he 
demanded the lost girl. The woman in charge denied 
vehemently that such a girl had ever been there or that 
she knew anything of her, playing her part of outraged 
modesty with a great show of sincerity. But when Mar- 
vel persisted and showed some knowledge of the facts, 
she took another tack and began to threaten him. He 
was a preacher, she said, and she would ruin him. She 
would call in the police, and she would like to see how 
it would look when an account came out in the news- 
papers next morning of his having visited what he 
thought a house of ill repute. She had friends among 
the police, and bigger friends even than the police, and 
they would see her through. 

425 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

John quietly seated himself. A serene and dauntless 
resolution shone from his eyes. “Well, you had better 
be very quick about it,” he said, “for I have already 
summoned officers and they will be here directly.” 

Then the woman weakened and began to cringe. 
She told him the same story that she had told me and 
the policeman when we had called before. A young 
woman had come there with a gentleman whom she 
called her husband, but she would not let her stay 
because she suspected her, etc., etc. 

“Why did you suspect her?” 

“Because, and because, and because,” she explained. 
“For other reasons, because the man was a foreigner.” 

John Marvel, for all his apparent heaviness, was 
clear-headed and reasonable. He was not to be de- 
ceived, so he quietly sat and waited. Then the woman 
had gone, as she said, to call the police, but, as was 
shown later, she had called not the police, but Gallagin 
and Mick Raffity and the man who stood behind and 
protected both of these creatures and herself, and the 
men who had come in response had been not officers 
of the police, but three scoundrels who, under a pre- 
tence of respectability, were among the most dangerous 
instruments used by Coll McSheen and his heelers. 
Fortunately for John Marvel we had arrived in the nick 
of time. All this appeared later. 

Unheeding her continued asseverations and vitupera- 
tion, the marshal proceeded to examine the house. 
The entire lower floor was searched without finding 
the woman. In the kitchen below, which was some- 
426 


JOHN MARVEL'S RAID 


what elaborate in its appointments, a number of sus- 
piciously attired and more than suspicious looking 
young women were engaged, apparently, in preparing 
to cook, for as yet the fire was hardly made, and in 
scrubbing industriously. Up-stairs a number more 
were found. For the moment nothing was said to them, 
but the search proceeded. They were all manifestly 
in a state of subdued excitement which was painful to 
see, as with disheveled hair, painted faces and heaving 
bosoms, they pretended to be engaged in tasks which 
manifestly they had rarely ever attempted before. Still 
there was no sign of Elsa, and as the proprietor de- 
clared that we had seen every room except that in 
which her sick daughter was asleep, it looked as though 
Elsa might not have been there after all. 

“Let us see your daughter/' said the officer. 

This was impossible. The doctor had declared that 
she must be kept absolutely quiet, and in fact the 
woman made such a show of sincerity and motherly 
anxiety, that I think I should have been satisfied. The 
marshal, however, knew his business better — he in- 
sisted on opening the door indicated, and inside, stretched 
on a dirty pallet, was a poor creature, evidently ill 
enough, if not actually at the point of death. It was 
not, however, the woman's daughter; but to my un- 
speakable horror, I recognized instantly the poor girl 
I had once rescued from a less cruel death and had 
turned over to the Salvation Army. There was no mis- 
taking her. Her scarred face was stamped indelibly on 
my memory. She presently recognized me too; but all 
427 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

she said was, “ They got me back. I knew they would.” 
We turned her over to John Marvel, while awaiting the 
ambulance, and continued our search which threatened 
to prove fruitless so far as Elsa Loewen was concerned. 
But at this moment a curious thing occurred. Dixey, 
who had been following me all the morning and had, 
without my taking notice of him, come not only to the 
house with us, but had come in as well, began to nose 
around and presently stopped at a door, where he pro- 
ceeded to whimper as he was accustomed to do when he 
wished to be let in at a closed door. I called him off, 
but though he came, he went back again and again, 
until he attracted the officer’s attention. The door was 
a low one, and appeared to be the entrance only to a 
cupboard. 

“Have we been in that room?” 

The woman declared that we had, but as we all 
knew it had not been entered, she changed and said it 
was not the door of a room at all, but of a closet. 

“Open it!” said the officer. 

“The key is lost,” said the woman. “We do not 
use it!” 

“Then I will open it,” said the marshal, and the 
next moment the door was forced open. The woman 
gave a scream and made a dash at the nearest man, 
beside herself with rage, fighting and tearing like a 
wild animal. And well she might, for inside, crum- 
pled up on the floor, under a pile of clothing, lay the 
girl we were searching for, in a comatose state. She 
was lifted carefully and brought out into the light, and 
428 


JOHN MARVEL’S RAID 


I scarcely knew her, so battered and bruised and dead- 
alive the poor thing appeared. Dixey, however, knew, 
and he testified his affection and gratitude by stealing 
in between us as we stood around her and licking the 
poor thing’s hand. It was a terrible story that was 
revealed when the facts came out, and its details were 
too horrifying and revolting to be put in print, but that 
night Madam Snow’s hotel was closed. The lights 
which had lured so many a frail bark to shipwreck 
were extinguished, and Madam Snow and her wretched 
retinue of slaves, who had been bound to a servitude 
more awful than anything which history could tell or 
romance could portray, were held in the custody of the 
marshal of the United States. 

The newspapers next day, with one exception, con- 
tained an account of the “ pulling ” of Smooth Ally’s 
place. That exception was The Trumpet. But a day 
or two later John Marvel received a cheque for $200 
from Coll McSheen “ for his poor.” I had never seen 
Wolffert show more feeling than when John, in the 
innocency of his heart, told him of the gift. “ It is the 
wedge of Achan! ” he exclaimed. “ It is hush money. 
It is blood money. It is the thirty pieces of silver 
given for blood. Even Judas returned it.” He made 
his proof clear, and the money was returned. 


429 


XXXII 


“DOCTOR CAIAPHAS ” 

It was the duty of the street-car company under 
their charter to run through cars every day or forfeit 
their charter — a wise provision, doubtless; but one 
which did not contemplate that Coll McSheen who was 
trying to destroy the company should have control of 
the police on whose protection the ability to carry out 
the charter depended. 

Under the compulsion of this requirement to run 
through cars, the management of the street-car line, 
after much trouble, secured a few men who, for a large 
price, agreed to operate the cars. But it was several 
hours after the regular time before the first car ran out 
of the shed. It made its way for some distance without 
encountering any difficulty or even attracting any at- 
tention beyond a few comments by men and women 
walking along the streets or standing in their doors. 
A little further along there were a few jeers, but pres- 
ently it turned a corner and reached a point in a street 
where a number of boys were playing, as usual, and a 
number of men out of work were standing about smoking 
their pipes and discussing with some acrimony the action 
of the meeting which had called the strike, and with 
some foreboding the future. As the car stopped for a 
moment to take on a woman who had been waiting, a 
430 


“ DOCTOR CAIAPHAS ” 

number of the boys playing in the street began to jeer 
and hoot the motorman, who was evidently somewhat 
unaccustomed to handling his car, and when he at- 
tempted to loosen his brake, and showed therein his 
unskilfulness, jeers turned into taunts, and the next 
moment a few handfuls of rubbish picked up in a 
gutter were flung at him. In a twinkling, as if by 
magic the street filled, and vegetables taken from in 
front of a neighboring shop, mingled with a few stones, 
began to rattle against the car, smashing the windows 
with much noise. , The rattling glass quickly attracted 
attention. It was like a bugle call, and in a minute more 
the road was blocked and a dozen youths sprang upon 
the car and a fierce fight ensued between them and the 
motorman and conductor, both of whom were soundly 
beaten and might have been killed but for their promise 
to give up their job and the somewhat tardy arrival of 
the police who had been promised, but had appeared 
on the scene only after the riot had taken place. This 
collision, which was begun by a lot of irresponsible 
boys, was described under glaring headlines in all of 
the afternoon papers as a riot of vast dimension. The 
effect of the riot, great or small, was instantaneous and 
far-reaching throughout the entire section. That even- 
ing the entire population of that section had changed 
from an attitude of reasonable neutrality to one of 
unequivocal hostility. It was a psychological moment. 
The spark had been dropped in the powder. Next 
day it was as if war had been declared. There were 
no neutrals. All had taken sides. 

431 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Before many days were out the strike had progressed 
so far that, instead of its being a small body of men en- 
gaged in cessation of work, with pacific methods of 
attempting to dissuade others who wished to continue 
their work from doing so, or, by some more positive 
form of argument known as picketing, of preventing 
new-comers from taking the places of those who had 
struck, it had developed into an active force whose 
frank object was to render it impossible for any man 
to take or hold a position as an employee of the railway 
company. It was not so much thatoneetings were fre- 
quently held and the measures advocated constantly 
grew more and more violent, nor that occasional out- 
breaks occurred, as that the whole temper of the people 
was becoming inflamed, and the conditions of life 
affected thereby were becoming almost intolerable. 
The call of the company on the mayor, as the repre- 
sentative of the public, to grant them protection, was 
promptly, if somewhat evasively, replied to. No man 
knew better than Coll McSheen how to express himself 
so that he might be understood differently by different 
men. It had been one of his strong cards in climbing 
to the altitude which he had reached. But the idea 
that the police would render efficient aid to the com- 
pany was openly and generally scoffed at in the quar- 
ters where the strike prevailed. It was boldly declared 
that the police were in sympathy with the strikers. 
This report appeared to have some foundation, when 
one cold night, with the thermometer at zero, a fire 
broke out in the mills owned by Mr. Leigh’s company, 
432 


" DOCTOR CAIAPHAS” 


and they were gutted from foundation to roof. It was 
charged on the strikers; but an investigation showed 
that this charge, like many others, was unfounded; at 
least, as it alleged a direct and intentional act. The 
evidence proved conclusively to my mind that the fire, 
while of incendiary origin, was started by a gang of 
reckless and dissolute youths who had no relation what- 
ever to the strikers, but whose purpose was to exhibit 
their enmity against a company which was held in such 
disfavor generally. This was the contention of Wolf- 
fert in his papers on the incident, and the view which 
Mr. Leigh afterward adopted. 

It was only an expression of the general feeling that 
had grown up in the city under the influence of the strike 
— one of the baleful offspring of the condition which 
McSheen and Wringman and their like had been able 
to produce from the conflict which they had projected 
and fostered. The wretched youths who were arrested, 
told under the sweating process a series of wholly con- 
flicting and incredible lies, and in time two of them 
were convicted on their own confessions and sent to the 
State prison, and the strikers who had not yet resorted 
to extreme measures of violence got the credit of the 
crime. 

The continued spread of the strike and of sympathy 
with it had already reached large proportions. The 
losses to business and to business men and the incon- 
venience to even the well-to-do classes were immense 
and when calculated in figures were quite staggering. 
The winter had set in with sudden severity. The 
433 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

suffering among the poor was incalculable. There 
was not a house or shop in the poorer districts where 
the pinch of poverty was not beginning to be felt. The 
wolf, which ever stands beside the door of the poor, 
had long since entered and cleaned out many of the 
small dwellings which the summer before had been the 
abode of hope and of reasonable content. Only the 
human wolves who prey on misfortune battened and 
fattened; the stock-brokers who organized raids on 
“the market,” the usurers who robbed the poor more 
directly, but not more effectively, the thieves of one 
kind or another alone prospered. The cry of hunger 
increased while bitterness without and within had long 
since begun to be universal, so long as to be scarcely 
heeded throughout the poor quarters. The efforts of 
philanthropy, individual and organized, were exercised 
to the utmost, but the trouble was too vast to be more 
than touched on the outer fringe. The evil which Mr. 
Leigh had predicted had come to pass and his prophecy 
had been far more than verified. Many of the young 
women, turned from their factories, had disappeared 
from the places which knew them before and found 
their way to haunts like Mel Gallagin’s “Gallery” and 
others less splendid, but not more wicked. Only in the 
sphere in which persons of extraordinary accumulation 
moved, like the Canters and the Argands, was there 
apparently no diminution in their expenditure and dis- 
play. Young Canter and his comrades still flaunted 
their vast wealth in undisguised and irresponsible dis- 
play — still gambled on the stock boards in commodities 
434 


“ DOCTOR CALVPHAS” 


that touched the lives of pining thousands — still multi- 
plied their horses and automobiles, and drove them 
recklessly through crowded streets, heedless of the 
pinched and scowling faces of unemployed multitudes. 
But older and saner heads were beginning to shake 
when the future was mentioned. The reefing of sails 
for a storm whose forerunners were on the horizon was 
already taking place, and every reef meant that some 
part of the crew which had sailed the ship so far was 
dropped overboard. 

The devil is credited with the power to raise a tem- 
pest. Certainly tempests are raised, but sometimes even 
the devil cannot quiet them. Such was the case with 
the strike. McSheen, Wringman and Co. had been 
completely successful in getting the strike of the Leigh 
employees under way: when it started, they privately 
took much pride in their work. Wringman received 
his wage and gratified his feeling of revenge for Mr. 
Leigh’s cool contempt of him on the occasion when he 
called to demand terms of him. McSheen had a score 
of longer standing to settle. It dated back to the time 
when Mr. Leigh, looking with clear and scornful eyes at 
his work, gave him to feel that at least one man knew 
him to the bottom of his scoundrelly soul. For a while 
it appeared as though Mr. Leigh would be irretrievably 
ruined and McSheen and his friends and secret backers 
like Canter would secure easy possession of the proper- 
ties his power of organization had built up; but sud- 
denly an unlooked-for ally with abundant resources had 
come to Mr. Leigh’s assistance in the person of an old 
435 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

friend, and the ripened fruit of their labors had been 
plucked from their hands outstretched to grasp it. And 
now having raised the tempest, these gamblers could not 
calm it. In other words, having started a strike among 
Mr. Leigh’s operatives for a specific purpose, it had 
spread like a conflagration and now threatened to de- 
stroy everything. The whole laboring population were 
getting into a state of ferment. Demands were made 
by their leaders such as had never been dreamed of 
before. The leaders were working them for their own 
purposes, and were after a temporary raise of wages. 
But there was a graver danger. The people were be- 
coming trained. A new leader was coming forward, 
and his writings were having a profound influence. He 
could not be bullied, and he could not be bought, this 
Jew, Wolff ert. He was opening the eyes of the People. 
Unless the thing were stopped, there would be a catas- 
trophe which would ruin them all. This was the judg- 
ment that McSheen and Canter and Co. arrived at. 
And this was the conclusion that Mr. Canter, Sr., 
announced to his son and heir, Mr. Canter, Jr., at the 
close of an interview in which he had discussed his 
affairs with more openness than he usually employed 
with that audacious young operator. “The fact is,” 
he said, “ that we have failed in the object of our move. 
We have not got hold of Leigh’s lines — and his men are 
returning to work while ours are just beginning to 
fight — and instead of getting his properties, we stand a 
blessed good show of losing our own. McSheen 
couldn’t deliver the goods and there is the devil to pay. 

436 


“DOCTOR CAIAPHAS ’ 7 


Why don’t you stop your nonsense and settle down 

and marry that girl? She’s the prettiest girl in town 
and — Well, you might go a good deal further and 
fare worse. There is a good property there if we don’t 
destroy it fighting for it. If you are ever going to do 
it, now is the time, and we are bound to have it, if pos- 
sible, to save our own.” 

Mr. Canter, Jr., shrugged his shoulders. “How do 
you know she would have me ? ” he asked with a sort of 
grin which was not altogether mirthful. He did not 
feel it necessary to impart to his parent the fact that he 
was beginning to have strong doubts himself on the 
subject. But Canter, Jr., was no fool. 

“Well, of course, she won’t, if you go spreeing 
around with a lot of blanked hussies. No decent 
woman would. But why the deuce don’t you drop 
that business? You are getting old enough now 
to know better. And you can’t keep hitting it up as 
you have been doing. There’s a new system coming 
in in this town, and you’ll get in trouble if you don’t 
look out. You came precious near it the other 
night. Those young men mean business. Get rid of 
that woman.” 

Young Canter for once came near disclosing to his 
father the whole situation and telling him the truth. 
He however contented himself with his usual half-light 
assurance that he was all right— and that he was going 
to settle down. He could not bring himself to tell him 
that he found himself bound with a chain which he 
could not break, and that “that woman” would not be 
437 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

gotten rid of. She, in fact, threatened not only to make 
a terrible scandal if he attempted to leave her, but 
actually menaced his life. 

However, he determined to act on his father’s advice. 
He would break off from her and if he could carry 
through his plans he would marry and go abroad and 
remain until the storm had blown over and “that 
woman” had consoled herself with some other soft 
young millionaire. 

Among all the people affected by the strike none 
suffered more, I believe, than John Marvel and 
Wolffert. I never saw any one more distressed by the 
suffering about them than these two men. Others 
suffered physically, they mentally, and in the re- 
flexive way which comes from overwrought sympathies. 
Where gloom and dull hate scowled from the brows of 
the working class, sadness and sorrow shadowed John’s 
brow, though at need he always had a smile and a 
cheery word for every one. He was soon reduced to his 
last suit of clothes, and as the cold increased, he went 
about overcoatless and gloveless, walking like fury and 
beating his arms to keep himself from freezing, his worn 
overcoat and gloves having long since gone with every- 
thing else he had to help some one needier than himself. 
“Take a long, deep breath,” he used to say, “and it 
will warm you up like a fire. What does a young man 
need with an overcoat?” What, indeed, with the 
thermometer at zero, and rapidly slipping still lower! 
“Those I grieve for are the old and the sick and the 
young children.” 


438 


“DOCTOR CAIAPHAS” 


However this was, he was busier than ever — going in 
and out among his poor; writing letters, making calls, 
appealing to those able to give, and distributing what 
he could collect, which, indeed, was no little, for the 
people at large were sympathetic with suffering and 
generous to poverty. And his ablest assistant in the 
work was Wolffert, if, indeed, he was not the leader. I 
never knew before what one man’s intellect and zeal 
consecrated to a work could accomplish. The great 
morass of poverty, wide and profound at all times, 
extending through the city, sapping the foundations and 
emitting its exhalations, became now bottomless and 
boundless. Into this morass Wolffert flung himself 
with the earnestness of a zealot. He worked day and 
night, organizing relief associations; looking after in- 
dividual cases; writing letters to the press and picturing 
conditions with a vividness which began to make an 
impression on all sides. He counselled patience and 
moderation on the part of the poor, but made no secret 
of his sympathy with them, and where he dealt with the 
injustice shown them it was with a pen of flame. The 
conservative papers charged that his letters added fuel 
to the flames already blazing. It was possibly true. 
Certainly, the flames were spreading. 

As the strike proceeded and violence increased, those 
evidences of sympathy which came in the form of con- 
tributions grew less, and at last they began to fail per- 
ceptibly. In the commotion the foulest dregs of the 
seething community were thrown up, the vilest scum 
rose to the top. As in the case of Mr. Leigh’s fire, what* 
439 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ever outrages were committed were charged to the 
strikers. The press, which had begun with expressions 
of sympathy with the strikers, had, under the impend- 
ing shadow, changed its tone and was now calling on 
the authorities to put down lawlessness with a strong 
hand; demanding that the police should be ordered to 
protect the property and lives of citizens, and calling on 
the mayor to bestir himself and call on the governor 
for aid. 

In this state of the case John Marvel, wishing to see 
what could be done to ameliorate the conditions about 
him, called a meeting of his congregation at his church 
one evening just before Christmas, and when the time 
came the little chapel was crowded to suffocation. It 
was a sombre and depressing-looking crowd that 
thronged the aisles of the little building. Poverty and 
want were in every face. A hopeless, sullen misery sat 
on every brow. The people thought that somehow 
some good would come of it, and many who had never 
been inside the walls before were on hand. I went in 
consequence of a talk I had with Marvel, who had 
casually mentioned Miss Eleanor Leigh’s name in con- 
nection with the first suggestion of the call. And I was 
rewarded, for seated back in the crowd, with her face a 
little more pallid than usual and her eyes filled with the 
light of expectancy and kindness, sat Eleanor Leigh. 
She was dressed with great simplicity; but her appear- 
ance was not the less attractive, at least to me. She 
smiled from time to time to some acquaintance in the 
sad-looking throng, but I had a pang of jealousy to see 
440 


“DOCTOR CAIAPHAS” 


how her gaze followed John Marvel, and one other 
member of the assembly, whose presence rather sur- 
prised me, Wolffert. 

After a brief service John Marvel, in a few touching 
and singularly apt words, explained the reason for 
having called them together, irrespective of their church 
relation, and urged that, as the blessed season which was 
accepted by Christendom as the time of peace on earth 
and good-will to all men was drawing near, they should 
all try to lay aside personal feeling and hates and 
grievances, and try what effect kindness and good-will 
would accomplish. He asked that all would try to help 
each other as formerly, and trust to the Divine and 
Merciful Master to right their wrongs and inspire com- 
passion for their sufferings. He referred to the terrible 
development that had just been made among them — the 
discovery of Elsa and the other poor girl who had been 
found at the Snow house — to the sudden arousing of the 
law after years of praying and working, and with a 
word of compassion for the poor creatures who had 
been misled and enslaved, he urged patience and 
prayer as the means to secure God’s all-powerful help 
in their distress. His words and manner were simple 
and touching, and I do not attempt to give any idea of 
them or of their effect. But I somehow felt as though 
I were hearing the very teaching of Christ. He would 
call on one who was their friend as they knew, the 
friend of all who needed a friend, to say a few words to 
them. He turned to Wolffert. Wolffert walked for- 
ward a few steps and turned, made a brief but power- 
441 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ful statement of the situation, and counselled patience 
and forbearance. He knew their sufferings, he said 
— he knew their fortitude. He knew their wrongs, 
but patience and fortitude would in time bring a reali- 
zation of it all in the minds of the public. What was 
needed was to make known to the world the truth, 
not as changed and distorted by ignorance or evil de- 
sign, but as it existed in fact. They had a more power- 
ful weapon than bullets or bayonets, the power of 
truth and justice. His own people had been preserved 
by Jehovah through the ages by the patience and for- 
titude He had given them, and God’s arm was not short- 
ened that He could not save nor His ear dulled that He 
could not hear. He used the same illustration that John 
Marvel had used: the unexpected arousing of the law 
to defend and save poor ignorant girls, who were being 
dragged down to the bottomless pit by organized infamy 
under the protection of men who had made themselves 
more powerful than the law. For these he had a few 
scathing words. He told of John Marvel’s going to 
find Elsa, and referred to the aid he had received from 
others, those connected with the railway line on which 
the strike existed; and he counselled them to protect 
themselves, obey the law, keep the peace, and await 
with patience the justice of God. Efforts were being 
made to furnish them with fuel. 

It may have been Wolffert’s deep, flashing eyes, his 
earnest manner and vibrant voice, which affected them, 
for, though he held himself under strong restraint, he 
was deeply affected himself; but when John Marvel, 
442 


“DOCTOR CAIAPHAS” 


after a brief prayer, dismissed them with the benedic- 
tion, the people, men and women, passed out in almost 
silence and dispersed to their homes, and their mur- 
mured talk was all in a new key of resignation and even 
of distant hope. I felt as though I had shaken off the 
trammels of selfishness that had hitherto bound me, 
and was getting a glimpse of what the world might be- 
come in the future. This simple follower of Christ 
among his poor, threadbare like them, like them fireless 
and hungry and poor, illustrated his master’s teaching 
in a way which I had never seen before, and it gave me 
a new insight into his power. I should have liked to 
go up to Eleanor Leigh and make peace with her; but 
while I deliberated Wolffert joined her and I walked 
home alone and thoughtful. 

The press next morning had a fairly full notice of the 
meeting — the first that had ever been given to the work 
done through the chapel and its minister. The chief 
notices in it were the connection of the minister with 
the case of Elsa Loewen and the attack on the system 
made by a Jew. One paper had the heading: 

“JEW AND CHRISTIAN.” 

Another’s headline ran: 

“PREACHER MARVEL VISITS A BAGNIO.” 

And it was only below that it was made plain that John 
Marvel had gone thither to rescue a lost girl. This, 
Kaiender once informed me, was the true art of making 
443 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

headlines. “Half the world don’t read anything but 
the headlines,” he asserted, “and the other half don't 
remember anything else.” The story made a sensation 
which Kalender himself might have coveted. 

That day about noon Mrs. Argand received a call 
from her counsel, the Hon. Collis McSheen, who un- 
folded to her such a diabolical scheme to injure her 
property interests in common with those of every other 
important property holder in the city, by a wicked 
Jewish wretch and his fellow in mischief, who professed 
to be a preacher of the Gospel in a chapel which she had 
largely helped to build for the poor, that between fright 
and rage the good lady was scarcely able to wait long 
enough to summon the Rev. Dr. Capon to her house. 
The Hon. Collis did not mention the fact that one of his 
own houses was at that moment closed through the act 
of this scheming parson, nor that he was beginning to 
shake over the idea that the investigation beginning 
to be set on foot in consequence of the meddlesomeness 
of this same person might reach uncomfortably near his 
own door, and that he was sensible that a force was 
being aroused which he could not control. 

Most women trust implicitly in their lawyers, and, 
curiously enough, many trust them in their affairs even 
when they know they are dishonest. Coll McSheen 
knew perfectly how to deal with Mrs. Argand. He 
descanted eloquently on his duty to the great estate she 
represented and his pride in her admirable manage- 
ment of it. One of the great fountains of charity was 
in danger. 


444 


“DOCTOR CAIAPHAS” 


The Reverend Doctor Bartholomew Capon visited 
his parishioner and was quite as much upset as she 
herself was over the information received from Mr. 
McSheen. Dr. Capon had but an indifferent opinion 
of Mr. McSheen. He knew him to be by repute a pro- 
tector of evildoers, a man of loose morals and low in- 
stincts, but he was a man of power of the brute kind 
and of keen insight into the grosser conditions. And 
his views as to the effect on property of any movement 
in the city were entitled to great respect, and property, 
to the doctor's mind, was undoubtedly a divine insti- 
tution. Moreover, a Jew who assailed it must have 
some ulterior design. And to think of his having been 
permitted to speak in his chapel I So Dr. Capon re- 
turned to his home much displeased with his assistant 
and, sitting down, wrote him a note immediately. 

This note John Marvel received next morning in his 
mail. It ran as follows: 

“Mr. Marvel will call at the rector's office to-morrow, 
Tuesday, at 11.30 promptly. 

“(Signed) Bartholomew Capon, D.D., 

“ Rectory etc., etc.” 

The tone of the note struck even John Marvel and 
he immediately brought it over to me. We both agreed 
that the doctor must have read the account of the raid 
on Madam Snow's and of his presence there when the 
officers arrived, and we decided that, notwithstanding 
the curtness of the summons, it was due to John him- 
self to go and make a simple statement of the matter. 
445 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

We felt indeed that the interview might result in awaken- 
ing the living interest of Dr. Capon in the work on 
which we had embarked and securing the co-operation 
not only of himself but of the powerful organization 
which he represented as rector of a large church. Dr. 
Capon was not a difficult man ; in his own way, which 
was the way of many others, he tried to do good. He 
was only a worldly man and a narrow man. He felt 
that his mission was to the rich. He knew them better 
than the poor and liked them better. The poor had so 
much done for them, why should not he look after the 
rich ? Like Simon, he believed that there was a power 
in money which was unlimited. 

At 11.30 promptly John Marvel presented himself 
in the front room of the building attached to the church, 
in one comer of which was the rector’s roomy office. A 
solemn servant was in waiting who took in his name, 
closing the door silently behind him, and after a minute 
returned and silently motioned John Marvel to enter. 
Dr. Capon was seated at his desk with a number of 
newspapers before him, and in response to John’s 
“Good morning,” he simply said, “Be seated,” with 
a jerk of his head toward a chair which was placed at 
a little distance from him, and John took the seat, feel- 
ing, as he afterward told me, much as he used to feel 
when a small boy, when he was called up by a teacher and 
set down in a chair for a lecture. The rector shuffled 
his newspapers in a sudden little accession of excitement, 
taking off his gold-rimmed glasses and putting them on 
again, and then taking up one, he turned to John. 

446 


“ DOCTOR CAIAPHAS” 


“Mr. Marvel, I am astonished at you — I am simply 
astounded that you should have so far forgotten your- 
self and what was due to your orders as to have done 
what I read in this sheet and what the whole press is 
ringing with.” 

“Well, sir,” said John, who had by this time gotten 
entire control of himself, and felt completely at ease in 
the consciousness of his innocence and of his ability 
to prove it. “I am not surprised that you should be 
astounded unless you knew the facts of the case.” 

“What facts, sir?” demanded Dr. Capon sternly. 
“Facts! There is but one fact to be considered — that 
you have violated a fundamental canon.” 

“ Yes, I knew it would look so, and I had intended to 
come yesterday to consult you as to the best method ” 

“It is a pity you had not done so — that you allowed 
your sense of duty to be so obscured as to forget what 
was due alike to me and to your sacred vows.” 

“But I was very much engaged,” pursued John, 
“with matters that appeared to me of much greater 
importance than anything relating to my poor self.” 

“Oh!” exclaimed the rector. “Cease! Cease your 
pretences! Mr. Marvel, your usefulness is ended. 
Sign that paper!” 

He picked up and held out to him with a tragic air 
a paper which he had already prepared before John 
Marvel’s arrival. John’s mind had for the moment 
become a blank to some extent under the unexpected 
attack, and it was a mechanical act by which his eye 
took in the fact that the paper thrust into his hand was 
447 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

a resignation declaring that it was made on the demand 
of the rector for reasons stated which rendered it im- 
perative that he sever his connection with that parish. 

“I will not sign that paper,” said John quietly. 

“You will not what?” The rector almost sprang 
out of his chair. 

“I will not sign that paper.” 

“And pray, why not?” * 

“ Because it places me in the position of acknowledg- 
ing a charge which, even if true, has not been specifically 
stated, and which is not true whatever the appearances 
may be, as I can readily prove.” 

“Not true?” the rector exclaimed. “Is it not true 
that you allowed a Jew to speak in your church, in my 
chapel ? ” 

“That I did what?” asked John, amazed at the un- 
expected discovery of the rector’s reason. 

“That you invited and permitted a man named 
Wolffert, a socialistic Jew, to address a congregation 
in my chapel?” 

“It is true,” said John Marvel, “that I invited Mr. 
Wolffert to speak to an assemblage in the chapel under 
my charge, and that he did so speak there.” 

“Uttering the most dangerous and inflammatory 
doctrines — doctrines alike opposed to the teaching of 
the church and to the command of the law?” 

“That is not true,” said John. “You have been 
misinformed.” 

“I do not wish or propose to discuss either this or 
any other matter with you, Mr. Marvel. You have 
448 


“ DOCTOR CAIAPHAS ” 


allowed a Jew to speak in the house of God. Your 
usefulness is ended. You will be good enough to sign 
this paper, for you may rest assured that I know my 
rights and shall maintain them. ,, 

“No, I will not sign this paper,” said John Marvel, 
“but I will resign. Give me a sheet of paper.” 

The rector handed him a sheet, and John drew up 
a chair to the desk and wrote his resignation in a half- 
dozen words and handed it to the rector. 

“Is that accepted?” he asked quietly. 

“It is.” The rector laid the sheet on his desk and 
then turned back to John Marvel. “And now, Mr. 
Marvel, allow me to say that you grossly, I may say 
flagitiously, violated the trust I reposed in you when ” 

John Marvel held up his hand. “Stop! Not one 
word more from you. I am no longer your assistant. 
I have stood many things from you because I believed 
it was my duty to stand them, so long as I was in a 
position where I could be of service, and because I felt 
it my duty to obey you as my superior officer, but now 
that this connection is severed, I wish to say that I will 
not tolerate one more word or act of insolence from you.” 

“Insolence?” cried the rector. “Insolence? You 
are insolent yourself, sir. You do not know the mean- 
ing of the term.” 

“Oh! Yes, I know it,” said John, who had cooled 
down after his sudden outbreak. “I have had cause 
to know it. I have been your assistant for two years. 
I bid you good morning, Dr. Capon.” He turned and 
walked out, leaving the rector speechless with rage. 

449 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

I do not mean in relating Dr. Capon’s position in this 
interview to make any charge against others who might 
honestly hold the same view which he held as to the 
propriety of John Marvel’s having requested Leo Wolf- 
fert to speak in his church, however much I myself 
might differ from that view, and however I might think 
in holding it they are tithing the mint, anise, and cumin, 
and overlooking the weightier matters of the law. My 
outbreak of wrath, when John Marvel told me of his 
interview with the rector, was due, not to the smallness 
of the rector’s mind, but to the simple fact that he 
selected this as the basis of his charge, when in truth 
it was overshadowed in his mind by the fact that Leo 
Wolffert’s address had aroused the ire of one of his 
leading parishioners, and that the doctor was thus 
guilty of a sham in bringing his charge, not because of 
the address, but because of the anger of his wealthy 
parishioner. Wolffert was savage in his wrath when 
he learned how John had been treated. “Your church 
is the church of the rich,” he said to me; for he would 
not say it to John. And when I defended it and 
pointed to its work done among the poor, to its long line 
of faithful devoted workers, to its apostles and martyrs, 
to John Marvel himself, he said: “Don’t you see that 
Dr. Caiaphas is one of its high-priests and is turning 
out its prophets ? I tell you it will never prosper till he 
is turned out and the people brought in ! Your Church 
is the most inconsistent in the world, and I wonder 
they do not see it. Its Head, whom it considers divine 
and worships as God, lived and died in a continual war 
450 


“ DOCTOR CAIAPHAS ” 


against formalism and sacerdotalism, it was the founda- 
tion of all his teaching for which he finally suffered 
death at the hands of the priests. The imperishable 
truth in that teaching is that God is within you, and to 
be worshipped 4 in spirit’ and in truth; that not the 
temple made with hands, but the temple of the body 
is the one temple, and that the poor are his chosen peo- 
ple — the poor in heart are his loved disciples; yet your 
priests arrogate to themselves all that he suffered to 
overthrow. Your Dr. Capon is only Dr. Caiaphas, with 
a few slight changes, and presumes to persecute the 
true disciples precisely as his predecessors persecuted 
their master.” 

“He is not my Dr. Capon,” I protested. 

“Oh! well, he is the representative of the ecclesiasti- 
cism that crucifies spiritual freedom and substitutes 
form for substance. He ‘makes broad his phylacteries 
and for a pretence makes long prayers.’” 

“It appears to me that you are very fond of quoting 
the Bible, for an unbeliever,” I said. 

“I, an unbeliever! I, a Jew!” exclaimed Wolff ert, 
whose eyes were sparkling. “My dear sir, I am the 
believer of the ages — I only do not believe that any 
forms established by men are necessary to bring men 
into communion with God — I refuse to believe selfish- 
ness, and arrogance, and blindness, when they step forth 
with bell, book, and candle, and say, obey us, or be 
damned. I refuse to worship a ritual, or a church. I will 
worship only God.” He turned away with that detached 
air which has alwavs struck me as something oriental. 
451 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

As soon as it became known in his old parish that 
John had resigned he was called back there; but the 
solicitations of his poor parishioners that he should not 
abandon them in their troubles prevailed, and Wolffert 
and I united in trying to show him that his influence 
now was of great importance. Indeed, the workers 
among the poor of every church came and besought 
him to remain. Little Father Tapp, patting him on 
the shoulder, said, “ Come to us, John, the Holy Father 
will make you a bishop.” So he remained with his 
people and soon was given another small chapel under 
a less fashionable and more spiritual rector. I think 
Eleanor Leigh had something to do with his decision. 
I know that she was so urgent for him to remain that 
both Dr. Capon and I were given food for serious 
thought. 


452 


XXXIII 


THE PEACE-MAKER 

It was in this condition of affairs that a short time 
after John Marvel had been dismissed from his cure by 
his incensed rector, a great dinner was given by Mrs. 
Argand which, because of the lavishness of the display 
and the number of notable persons in the city who were 
present, and also because of a decision that was reached 
by certain of the guests at the dinner and the conse- 
quences which it was hoped might ensue therefrom, was 
fully written up in the press. If Mrs. Argand knew one 
thing well, it was how to give an entertainment which 
should exceed in its magnificence the entertainment of 
any other person in the city. She was a woman of great 
wealth. She had had a large experience both at home 
and abroad in entertainments whose expenditure re- 
mained traditional for years. She had learned from 
her husband the value, as a merely commercial venture, 
of a fine dinner. She knew the traditional way to men’s 
hearts, and she felt that something was due to her posi- 
tion, and at the same time she received great pleasure in 
being the centre and the dispenser of a hospitality which 
should be a wonder to all who knew her. Her house 
with its great rooms and galleries filled with expensive 
pictures lent itself well to entertainment. And Mrs. 
Argand, who knew something of history, fancied that 
453 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

she had what quite approached a salon. To be sure 
those who frequented it were more familiar with stock 
exchanges and counting-houses than with art o 
literature. On this occasion she had assembled a num 
ber of the leading men of affairs in the city, with th 
purpose not so much of entertaining them, as of secui 
ing from them a co-operation, which, by making 
show of some concession to the starving strikers am 
their friends, should avail to stop the steady loss in he 
rents and drain on even her great resources. She ha< 
already found herself compelled, by reason of the reduc 
tion in her income, which prevented her putting by a 
large a surplus as she had been accustomed to put b; 
year by year, to cut off a number of her charities, an< 
this she disliked to do, for she not only regretted having 
to cut down her outlay for the relief of suffering, bu 
it was a blow to her pride to feel that others knew tha 
her income was reduced. 

The idea of the dinner had been suggested by no les 
a person than Dr. Capon himself, to whom the happ; 
thought had occurred that possibly if a huge mass meet 
ing composed of the strikers could be assembled in sonx 
great auditorium, and addressed by the leading men ii 
the city, they might be convinced of the folly and erro 
of their ways and induced to reject the false teaching o 
their designing leaders and return to work, by which lx 
argued the great suffering would be immediately re 
duced, the loss alike to labor and to capital would b< 
stopped, peace would be restored, and the general wel 
fare be tremendously advanced. Moreover, he woulc 
454 


THE PEACE-MAKER 


show that his removal of his assistant was not due to 
his indifference to the poor as Wolffert had charged in 
a biting paper on the episode, but to a higher motive. 
What John Marvel had tried on a small scale he would 
accomplish on a vast one. He would himself, he said, 
take pleasure in addressing such an audience, and he 
felt sure that they would listen to the friendly admoni- 
tion of a minister of the Gospel, who could not but 
stand to them as the representative of charity and 
divine compassion. 

T will not attempt to describe the richness of the floral 
decorations which made Mrs. Argand’s great house a 
bower of roses and orchids for the occasion, nor the 
lavish display of plate, gilded and ungilded, which 
loaded the great table, all of which was set forth in the 
press the following day with a lavishness of description 
and a wealth of superlatives quite equal to the display 
at the dinner; nor need I take time to describe the 
guests who were assembled. Mr. Leigh, who was in- 
vited, was not present, but expressed himself as ready 
to meet his men half-way. Every viand not in season 
was in the mdnu. It was universally agreed by the 
guests that no entertainment which was recalled had ever 
been half so rich in its decorations or so regal in its dis- 
play or so sumptuous in its fare; that certainly the same 
number of millions had never been represented in any 
private house in this city, or possibly, in any city of 
the country. It remains only to be said that the plan 
proposed by the Rev. Dr. Capon met with the approval 
of a sufficient number to secure an attempt at its adop- 
455 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

tion, though the large majority of the gentlemen present 
openly expressed their disbelief that any good whatever 
would come of such an attempt, and more than one 
frankly declared that the doctor was attempting to 
sprinkle rose-water when really what was actually 
needed were guns and bayonets. The doctor, however, 
was so urgent in the expression of his views, so certain 
that the people would be reasonable and could not fail 
to be impressed by a kindly expression of interest, and 
the sound advice of one whom they must recognize as 
their friend, that a half-derisive consent was given to a 
trial of his plan. 

Among the notices of this dinner was one which 
termed it “Belshazzar’s Feast,” and as such it became 
known in the workingmen’s quarter. Its scorching 
periods described the Babylonian splendor of the en- 
tertainment provided for the officials of millionairedom, 
and pictured with simple art the nakedness of a hovel 
not five blocks away, in which an old man and an old 
woman had been found that day frozen to death. I 
recognized in it the work of Wolffert’s virile pen. John 
Marvel might forgive Dr. Capon, but not Wolffert Dr. 
Caiaphas. The proposed meeting, however, excited 
much interest in all circles of the city, especially in that 
underlying circle of the poor whose circumference cir- 
cumscribed and enclosed all other circles whatsoever. 
What was, indeed, of mere interest to others was of 
vital necessity to them, that some arrangement should 
be arrived at by which work should once more be given 
to the ever-increasing body of the unemployed, whose 
456 


THE PEACE-MAKER 


sombre presence darkened the brightest day and tinged 
with melancholy the fairest expectation. In further- 
ance of Dr. Capon’s plan a large hall was secured, and 
a general invitation was issued to the public, especially 
to the workingmen of the section where the strike ex- 
isted, to attend a meeting set for the earliest possible 
moment, an evening in the beginning of the next week. 
The meeting took place as advertised and the attend- 
ance exceeded all expectation. The heart of the poor 
beat with renewed hope, though, like their wealthy 
neighbors, many of them felt that the hope was a 
desperate one. Still they worked toward the single 
ray of light which penetrated into the gloom of their 
situation. 

The seats were filled long before the hour set for the 
meeting and every available foot of standing room was 
occupied, the corridors of the building were filled, and 
the streets outside were thronged with groups discussing 
the possibility of some settlement in low and earnest 
tones, broken now and then by some strident note of 
contention or sullen growl of hate. Knowing the in- 
terest in the movement throughout the quarter where I 
lived, and having some curiosity besides to hear what 
Coll McSheen and the Rev. Dr. Capon had to say, I 
went early in company with Wolffert and John Marvel, 
the former of whom was absolutely sceptical, the latter 
entirely hopeful of permanent results. Wolffert’s eyes 
glowed with a deep but lambent flame as he spoke of 
“Dr. Caiaphas.” On arrival at the hall he left us and 
moved to the front rows. The crowd on the platform 
457 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

represented the leaders in many departments of busi- 
ness in the city, among whom were a fair sprinkling of 
men noted for their particular interest in all public 
charities and good works, and in a little group to one 
side, a small body composed of the more conservative 
element among the leaders of the workingmen in the 
city. The whole affair had been well worked up and 
on the outside it gave a fair promise of success. A 
number of boxes were filled with ladies interested in the 
movement and I had not been in the hall five minutes 
before I discovered Eleanor Leigh in one of the boxes, 
Aer face grave, but her eyes full of eager expectation. 
It was with a sinking of the heart that I reflected on the 
breach between us, and I fear that I spent my time 
much more in considering how I should overcome it 
than in plans to relieve the distress of others. 

The meeting opened with an invocation by the Rev. 
Dr. Capon, which appeared to strike some of the assem- 
blage as somewhat too eloquent, rather too long, and 
tinged with an expression of compassion for the igno- 
rance and facility for being misguided of the working 
class. When he began the assemblage was highly 
reverent, when he ended there were murmurs of criti- 
cism and discussion audible throughout the hall. The 
introductory statement of the reason for the call was 
made by the Hon. Collis McSheen, who, as mayor of 
the city, lent the dignity of his presence to the occasion. 
It was long, eloquent, and absolutely silent as to his 
views on any particular method of settlement of the 
question at issue, but it expressed his sympathy with all 
458 


THE PEACE-MAKER 


classes in terms highly general and concluded with an 
impartial expression of advice that they should get to- 
gether, provided all could get what they wanted, which 
appeared to him the easiest thing in the world to do. 
Following him, one of the magnates of the city, Mr. 
James Canter, Sr., delivered a brief business statement 
of the loss to the city and the community at large, 
growing out of the strike, expressed in figures which 
had been carefully collated, and closed with the em- 
phatic declaration that the working people did not 
know what they wanted. One other thing he made 
plain, that in a strike the working people suffered most, 
which was a proposition that few persons in the hall 
were prepared to deny. Then came the Rev. Dr. Ca- 
pon, who was manifestly the chief speaker for the oc- 
casion. His manner was graceful and self-assured, 
his voice sonorous and well modulated, and his tone was 
sympathetic, if somewhat too patronizing. His first 
sentences were listened to with attention. He expressed 
his deep sympathy somewhat as the mayor had done, 
but in better English and more modulated tones, with 
all classes, especially with the working people. A slight 
cough appeared to have attacked one portion of the 
audience, but it stopped immediately, and silence once 
more fell on the assemblage as he proceeded. 

“And now,” he said, as he advanced a step nearer to 
the edge of the platform, and, having delivered himself 
of his preliminary expressions of condolence, threw up 
his head and assumed his best pulpit manner, “ under a 
full sense of my responsibility to my people and my 
459 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

country I wish to counsel you as your friend, as the 
friend of the poor” — the slight cough I have mentioned 
became audible again — “as the friend of the working- 
man whose interests I have so deeply at heart.” 

At this moment a young man who had taken a seat 
well to the front on the main aisle, rose in his seat and 
politely asked if the doctor would allow him to ask him a 
question, the answer to which he believed would enable 
the audience to understand his position better. The 
pleasant tone of the young man led the doctor to give 
permission, and also the young man’s appearance, for 
it was Wolffert. 

“ Certainly, my dear sir,” he said. 

Wolffert suddenly held up in his hand a newspaper. 

“I wish,” he said, “to ask you where you dined last 
Friday night; with whom?” 

The question provoked a sudden outpour of shouts 
and cheers and cries of derision, and in a moment pande- 
monium had broken loose. The doctor attempted to 
speak again and again, but about all that could be 
heard was his vociferation that he was their friend. 
Wolffert. whose question had caused the commotion, 
was now mounted on a chair and waving his arms wildly 
about him, and presently, moved by curiosity, the 
tumult subsided and the audience sat with their faces 
turned toward the man on the chair. He turned, and 
with a sweep of his arm toward the stage, he cried : 

“We don’t want to hear you. What have you done 
that you should give us advice ? What do you know of 
us ? When have you ever hearkened to the cry of the 
460 


THE PEACE-MAKER 


destitute? When have you ever visited the fatherless 
and the widows in affliction, unless they were rich ? 
When have you ever done anything but fawn on Herod 
and flatter Pontius? Whom are you here to help and 
set free to-day? These people? No! High-priest of 
wealth and power and usurpation, we know you and 
your friends — the Jesus you ask to free is not the 
Nazarene, but Barabbas, the robber, promoter of vice 
and patron of sin!” 

His long arm pointed at the platform where sat 
McSheen, his face black with impotent rage. “If we 
are to have a priest to address us, let us have one that 
we can trust. Give us a man like John Marvel. We 
know him and he knows us.” He turned and pointed 
to Marvel. 

The effect was electrical. Shouts of “Marvel! Mr. 
Marvel ! Marvel ! Marvel ! J ohn Marvel ! ” rang from 
their throats, and suddenly, as with one impulse, the 
men turned to our comer where John Marvel had sunk 
in his seat to escape observation, and in an instant he 
was seized, drawn forth and lifted bodily on the shoul- 
ders of men and borne to the platform as if on the crest 
of a tidal wave. Coll McSheen and Dr. Capon were 
both shouting to the audience, but they might as well 
have addressed a tropical hurricane. The cries of 
“Marvel, Marvel” drowned every other sound, and 
presently those on the stage gathered about both 
McSheen and the rector, and after a moment one 
of them stepped forward and asked John Marvel to 
speak. 


461 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

John Marvel turned, stepped forward to the edge of 
the platform, and reached out one long arm over the 
audience with an awkward but telling gesture that I had 
often seen him use, keeping it extended until, after one 
great outburst of applause, the tumult had died down. 

“My friends,” he began. Another tumult. 

“That is it. Yes, we are your friends.” 

Still the arm outstretched commanded silence. 

He began to speak quietly and slowly and his voice 
suddenly struck me as singularly sympathetic and clear, 
as it must have struck the entire assembly, for suddenly 
the tumult ceased and the hall became perfectly quiet. 
He spoke only a few minutes, declaring that he had not 
come to speak to them; but to be with them, and pray 
that God might give them (he said “us”) peace and 
show some way out of the blackness which had settled 
down upon them. He bade them not despair, however 
dark the cloud might be which had overshadowed them. 
They might be sure that God was beyond it and that 
He would give light in His own time. He was leading 
them now, as always — the presence of that assembly, 
with so many of the leading men of the city asking a 
conference, was in itself a proof of the great advance 
their cause had made. That cause was not, as some 
thought, so much money a day, but was the claim to 
justice and consideration and brotherly kindness. He 
himself was not a business man. He knew nothing of 
such matters. His duty was to preach — to preach 
peace — to preach the love of God — to preach patience 
and long-suffering and forgiveness, the teaching of his 
462 


THE PEACE-MAKER 


Lord and master, who had lived in poverty all His life, 
without a place to lay His head, and had died calling on 
God to forgive His enemies. 

This is a poor summary of what he said very simply 
but with a feeling and solemnity which touched the 
great audience, who suddenly crushed out every at- 
tempt to contradict his proposition. Something had 
transformed him so that I could scarcely recognize him. 
I asked myself, can this be John Marvel, this master 
of this great audience ? What is the secret of his power ? 
The only answer I could find was in his goodness, his 
sincerity, and sympathy. 

“And now,” he said in closing, “whatever happens, 
please God, I shall be with you and take my lot among 
you, and I ask you as a favor to me to listen to Dr. 
Capon.” 

There was a great uproar and shout; for Dr. Capon 
had, immediately after John Marvel got control of his 
audience, risen from his seat, seized his hat and coat 
and cane, and stalked with great majesty from the plat- 
form. There were, however, a number of other speech- 
es, and although there was much noise and tumult, 
some advance was made; for a general, though by no 
means unanimous, opinion was shown in favor of some- 
thing in the nature of a reconciliation. 

As I glanced up after John Marvel returned amid the 
shouts to his seat, I saw Miss Leigh in one of the boxes 
leaning forward and looking with kindled eyes in our 
direction. Thinking that she was looking at me, and 
feeling very forgiving, I bowed to her, and it was only 
463 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

when she failed to return my bow that I apprehended 
that she was not looking at me but at John Marvel. If 
she saw me she gave no sign of it; and when I walked 
the streets that night, strikes and strikers occupied but 
little of my thoughts. Unless I could make up with 
Eleanor Leigh, the whole world might go on strike for 
me. I determined to consult John Marvel. He had 
somehow begun to appear to me the sanest of advisers. 
I began to feel that he was, as Wolffert had once said 
of him, “ a sort of Ark of the Covenant.” 


XXXIV 

THE FLAG OF TRUCE 

My acquaintance was now extending rapidly. I had 
discovered in the turgid tide that swept through the 
streets of the city other conditions and moods than 
those I- first remarked: dark brooding shadows and 
rushing rapids catching the light, but fierce and deadly 
beneath; placid pools and sequestered eddies, far 
apart where the sunlight sifted in and lay soft on the 
drift that had escaped the flood, touching it with its 
magic and lending it its sweet radiance. I had found, 
indeed, that the city was an epitome of the world. 
It took a great many people to make it and there were 
other classes in it besides the rich and the poor. It was 
in one of these classes that I was beginning to find 
myself most at home. 

I received one day an invitation to dine one evening 
the following week at the house of a gentleman whom 
I had met a week or two before and whom I had called 
on in response to an invitation unusually cordial. I 
had not been to a fashionable dinner since I had come 
to the West, and I looked forward with some curiosity 
to the company whom I should meet at Mr. Desport’s, 
for I knew nothing about him except that I had met 
him in a law case and we had appeared to have a num« 
465 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

her of things in common, including objects of dislike, 
und further, that when I called on him he lived in a 
very handsome house, and I was received in one of the 
most charming libraries it was ever my good fortune to 
enter, and with a graciousness on the part of his wife 
which I had never known excelled. It was like step- 
ping into another world to pass from the rush of the city 
into that atmosphere of refinement and culture. 

My heart, however, was a little lower down than it 
should have been, for I could not but reflect with how 
much more pleasure I would have arrayed myself if it 
had been an invitation to Mr. Leigh’s. In truth, the 
transition from my narrow quarters and the poverty of 
those among whom I had been living for some time, 
made this charming house appear to me the acme of 
luxury, and I was conscious of a sudden feeling, as I 
passed this evening through the ample and dignified 
hall into the sumptuous drawing-room, that somehow 
I was well fitted for such surroundings. Certainly I 
found them greatly to my taste. I was received again 
most graciously by Mrs. Desport, and as I had followed 
my provincial custom of coming a little ahead of time, I 
was the first visitor to arrive, a fact which I did not re- 
gret, as Mrs. Desport took occasion to tell me something 
of the guests whom she expected. After describing 
what I concluded to be a somewhat staid and elderly 
company, she added : 

“ I have given you a young lady whom I feel sure you 
will like. She is a little serious-minded, I think, and 
some people consider that she is simply posing; but 
466 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


however eccentric she may be, I believe that she is 
really in earnest, and so does my husband; and I have 
never seen a young girl improve so much as she has done 
since she took up this new work of hers.” 

What this work was I was prevented from inquiring 
by the arrival of a number of guests all at once. 

A dinner where the guests are not presented to each 
other differs in no important sense from a table-d’hote 
dinner. The soup is likely to be a trifle colder and the 
guests a trifle more reserved — that is all. Mrs. Desport, 
however, followed the old-fashioned custom of intro- 
ducing her guests to each other, preferring to open the 
way for them to feel at home, rather than to leave them 
floundering among inanities about the weather and their 
taste for opera. And though a lady, whom I presently 
sat next to, informed me that they did not do it “in 
England or even in New York now,” I was duly grate- 
ful. 

Having been presented to the company, I found them 
gay and full of animation, even though their conversa- 
tion was inclined to be mainly personal and related 
almost exclusively to people with whom, for the most 
part, I had no acquaintance. The name of young 
Canter figured rather more extensively in it than was 
pleasant to me, and Dr. Capon was handled with some- 
what less dignity than the cloth might have been sup- 
posed to require. I was, however, just beginning to 
enjoy myself when my attention was suddenly diverted 
by the sound of a voice behind me, as another guest ar- 
rived. I did not even need to turn to recognize Eleanor 
467 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Leigh, but when I moved around sufficiently to take a 
side glance at her, I was wholly unprepared for the 
vision before me. I seemed to have forgotten how 
charming she looked, and she broke on me like a fresh 
dawn after a storm. I do not know what I was think- 
ing, or whether I was not merely just feeling, when my 
hostess came forward. 

“Now we are all here. Mr. Glave, you are to take 
Miss Leigh in. You know her, I believe ?” 

I felt myself red and pale by turns and, glancing at 
Miss Leigh, saw that she, too, was embarrassed. I was 
about to stammer something when my hostess moved 
away, and as it appeared that the others had all paired 
off, there was nothing for me to do but accept the situa- 
tion. As I walked over and bowed, I said in a low tone: 

“ I hope you will understand that I had no part in this. 
I did not know.” 

She evidently heard, for she made a slight bow and 
then drew herself up and took my arm. 

“I should not have come,” I added, “had I known 
of this. However, I suppose it is necessary that we 
should at least appear to be exchanging with ordinary 
interest the ordinary inanities of such an occasion.” 

She bowed, and then after a moment’s silence added: 

“I have nothing to say which could possibly interest 
you, and suggest that we do what I have heard has been 
done under similar circumstances, antf simply count.” 

I thought of the molten metal pourable down an 
offender’s throat. And with the thought came another: 
Did it mean that she was going to marry that young 
468 



“ I suppose it is necessary that we should at least appear to be 
exchanging the ordinary inanities.” 



THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


Canter? It was as if one who had entered Eden and 
discovered Eve, had suddenly found the serpent coiling 
himself between them. 

“Very well.” I was now really angry. I had hoped 
up to this time that some means for reconciliation might 
be found, but this dashed my hope. I felt that I was 
the aggrieved person, and I determined to prove to her 
that I would make no concession. I was not her slave. 
“Very well, then — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 
eight — nine, ten, eleven, twelve — thirteen,” I said, 
looking straight ahead of me and dropping every sylla- 
ble as if it were an oath. She gave me a barely percep- 
tible side glance. I think I had taken her aback by my 
prompt compliance. She hesitated a moment. 

“Or, as that is not very amusing, suppose we cap 
verses ? I hear you know a great deal of poetry — Mr. 
Wolffert told me. I never knew any one with such a 
memory as his.” I recognized the suggestion as a flag 
of truce. 

I bowed, and as, of course, “Mary had a little lamb,” 
was the first thing that popped into my head with its 
hint of personal application, I foolishly quoted the first 
verse, intending her to make the personal application. 

She was prompt to continue it, with, I thought, a 
little sub-tone of mischief in her voice: 

“It followed her to school one day. 

Which was against the 

she said demurely. There she stopped, so I took up 
the challenge. 


469 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Which made the children laugh and say 
*A lamb’s a little fool/ ” 

It was a silly and inept ending, I knew as soon as I 
had finished — still, it conveyed my meaning. 

She paused a moment and evidently started to look 
at me, but as evidently she thought better of it. She, 
however, murmured, “ I thought we would quote verses, 
not make them.” 

I took this to be a confession that she was not able to 
make them, and I determined to show how much clev- 
erer I was; so, without noticing the cut of the eye 
which told of her wavering, I launched out: 

“There was a young lady of fashion, 

Who, finding she’d made quite a mash on 
A certain young swain, 

Who built castles in Spain, 

Fell straight in a terrible passion.” 

To this she responded with a promptness which sur- 
prised me: 

“A certain young lady of fashion, 

Had very good grounds for her passion, 

It sprang from the pain 
Of a terrible strain 

On her friendship, and thus laid the lash on.” 

I felt that I must be equal to the situation, so I began 
rapidly: 

“I’m sure the young man was as guiltless 
As infant unborn and would wilt less 
If thrown in the fire 
Than under her ire ” 

470 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


“Than under her ire,” I repeated to myself. “Than 
under the ire” — what the dickens will rhyme with 
“wilt less”? We had reached the dining-room by this 
time and I could see that she was waiting with a pro- 
voking expression of satisfaction on her face over my 
having stalled in my attempt at a rhyme. I placed her 
in her chair and, as I took my own seat, a rhyme came 
to me — a poor one, but yet a rhyme : 

“And since, Spanish castles he’s built less,” 

I said calmly as I seated myself, quite as if it had come 
easily. 

“I was wondering how you’d get out of that,” she 
said with a little smile which dimpled her cheek be- 
guilingly. “You know you might have said, 

“ ‘And since, milk to weep o’er he’s spilt less’; 
or even, 

“ ‘And since, striped mosquitoes he’s kilt less/ 

Either would have made quite as good a rhyme and 
sense, too.” 

I did not dare let her see how true I thought this. It 
would never do to let her make fun of me. So I kept 
my serious air. 

I determined to try a new tack and surprise her. I 
had a few shreds of Italian left from a time when I had 
studied the poets as a refuge from the desert dulness of 
my college course, and now having, in a pause, recalled 
the lines, I dropped, as though quite naturally, Dante's 
immortal wail: 


471 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

" 1 Nessun maggior dolore 
Che recordarci del tempo felice 
Nella miseria/” 

I felt sure that this would at least impress her with 
my culture, while if by any chance she knew the lines, 
which I did not apprehend, it would impress her all the 
more and might prove a step toward a reconciliation. 

For a moment she said nothing, then she asked 
quietly, “How does the rest of it go ?” 

She had me there, for I did not know the rest of the 
quotation. 

" ‘E cio sa il tuo dottore/ ” 

she said with a cut of her eye, and a liquid tone that 
satisfied me I had, as the saying runs, “stepped from the 
frying-pan into the fire.” 

She glanced at me with a smile in her eyes that re- 
minded me, through I know not what subtle influence, 
of Spring, but as I was unresponsive she could not tell 
whether I was in earnest or was jesting. 

I relapsed into silence and took my soup, feeling that 
I was getting decidedly the worst of it, when I heard her 
murmuring so softly as almost to appear speaking to 
herself : 

•'“The time has come/ the Walrus said, 

* To talk of other things — 

Of ships and shoes and sealing-wax, 

And cabbages and Kings/” 

I glanced at her to find her eyes downcast, but a be- 
guiling little dimple was flickering near the comers of 
472 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


her mouth and her long lashes caught me all anew. My 
heart gave a leap. It happened that I knew my Alice 
much better than my Dante, so when she said, “You 
can talk, can’t you ?” I answered quietly, and quite as 
if it were natural to speak in verse : 

“ ‘In my youth/ said his father, ‘I took to the Law, 

And argued each case with my wife, 

And the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw 
Has lasted the rest of my life/ ” 

She gave a little subdued gurgle of laughter as she 
took up the next verse: 

“ ‘You are old/ said the youth. ‘One would hardly suppose 
That your eye was as steady as ever, 

Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose — 

What made you so awfully clever ?’ ” 

I hoped that she was embarrassed when I found that 
she had taken my napkin by mistake, and she was un- 
doubtedly so when she discovered that she had it. 

“I beg your pardon/’ she said as she handed me 
hers. 

I bowed. 

With that, seeing my chance, I turned and spoke to 
the lady on my other side, with whom I was soon in an 
animated discussion, but my attention was not so en- 
grossed by her that I did not get secret enjoyment out 
of the fact when I discovered that the elderly man on 
the other side of Miss Leigh was as deaf as a post and 
that she had to repeat every word that she said to him. 

The lady on the other side of me was rambling on 

473 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

about something, but just what, I had not the least idea 
(except that it related to the problem-novel, a form of 
literature that I detest), as I was soon quite engrossed 
in listening to the conversation between Eleanor Leigh 
and her deaf companion, in which my name, which ap- 
peared to have caught the gentleman’s attention, was 
figuring to some extent. 

“Any relation to my old friend, Henry Glave?” I 
heard him ask in what he doubtless imagined to be a 
whisper. 

“Yes, I think so,” said Miss Leigh. 

“You say he is not?” 

“No, I did not say so; I think he is.” 

“He is a fine lawyer,” I heard him say, and I was 
just pluming myself on the rapid extension of my repu- 
tation, when he added, “He is an old friend of your 
father’s, I know. I was glad to hear he had come up to 
represent your father in his case against those rascals. — 
A friend of yours, too,” were the next words I heard, 
for decency required me to appear to be giving some at- 
tention to my other neighbor, whom I devoutly wished 
in Ballyhac, so I was trying resolutely, though with but 
indifferent success, to keep my attention on the story she 
was telling about some one whom, like Charles Lamb, 
I did not know, but was ready to damn at a venture. 

“He told me he came on your account, as much as on 
your father’s,” said the gentleman, rallyingly. “ You had 
better look out. These old bachelors are very suscep- 
tible. No fool like an old fool, you know.” 

To this Miss Eleanor made some laughing reply, from 

474 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


which I gathered that her neighbor was a bachelor him- 
self, for he answered in the high key which he mistook 
for a whisper: 

“ You had better not say that to me, for if you do, I’ll 
ask you to marry me before the dessert.” 

I was recalled to myself by my other neighbor, who 
had been talking steadily, asking me suddenly, and in a 
tone which showed she demanded an answer: 

“What do you think of that?” 

“Why, I think it was quite natural,” I said. 

“You do?” 

“Yes, I do,” I declared firmly. 

“You think it was natural for him to run off with his 
own daughter-in-law!” Her eyes were wide with aston- 
ishment. 

“Well, not precisely natural, but — under the circum- 
stances, you see, it was certainly more natural than for 
him to run off with his mother-in-law — you will have to 
admit that.” 

“ I admit nothing of the kind,” she declared, with some 
heat. “I am a mother-in-law myself, and I must say I 
think the jibes at mothers-in-law are very uncalled for.” 

“Oh! now you put me out of court,” I said. “I did 
not mean to be personal. Of course, there are mothers- 
in-law and mothers-in-law.” 

Happily, at this moment the gentleman on her other 
side insisted on securing her attention, and I turned just 
in time to catch the dimples of amusement that were 
playing in Eleanor Leigh’s face. She had evidently 
heard my mistake. 


475 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 


“Oh! he is so deaf!” she murmured, half turning to 
me, though I was not quite sure that she was not 
speaking to herself. The next second she settled the 
question. “He is so distressingly deaf,” she repeated 
in an undertone, with the faintest accent of appeal for 
sympathy in her voice. I again recognized the flag of 
truce. But I replied calmly : 

“ I passed by his garden and marked with one eye 
How the owl and the panther were sharing a pie. 

The panther took pie-crust and gravy and meat, 

While the owl had the dish as its share of the treat.” 

The color mantled in her cheek and she raised her 
head slightly. 

“Are you going to keep that up ? I suppose we shall 
have to talk a little. I think we are attracting attention. 
For Heaven’s sake, don’t speak so loud! We are being 
observed.” 

But I continued : 

“When the pie was all finished, the owl, as a boon, 

Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon.” 

4 It is very rude of you to go on in that way when 1 
am speaking. You remind me of a machine,” she 
smiled. “Here am I stuck between two men, one of 
whom cannot hear a word I say, while the other does 
nothing but run on like a machine.” I observed, with 
deep content, that she was becoming exasperated. 

At that moment the hostess leant forward and said: 

“What are you two so interested in discussing there? 

476 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 

I have been watching, and you have not stopped a 
minute.” 

Eleanor Leigh burst into a laugh. “Mr. Glave is 
talking Arabic to me.” 

“ Arabic 1” exclaimed the hostess. “Mr. Glave, you 
have been in the East, have you ? ” 

“Yes, he came from the East where the wise men 
always come from,” said Miss Leigh. Then turning to 
me she said in an undertone, “You see what I told you.” 

For reply, I simply quoted on, though I had a little 
pang as I saw the shadow come into her eyes and the 
smile leave her mouth. 

“My father was deaf, 

And my mother was dumb, 

And to keep myself company, 

I beat the drum.” 

“I think that was a very good occupation for you,” 
she said, turning away, with her head very high. 

“Will you let me say something to you?” she said 
in a low tone a moment later, and, without waiting, she 
added : 

“ I think it was rather nasty in me to say what I said 
to you when you first came in, but you had treated me 
so rudely when I spoke to you on the street.” 

“You do not call it rude not to answer a letter when 
a gentleman writes to explain an unfortunate mistake, 
and then cut him publicly?” 

“I did not receive it until afterward,” she said. “I 
was away from town, and as to cutting you — I don y t 
know what you are talking about.” 

477 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“At the Charity Fair.” 

“I never saw you. I wondered you were not there.” 

Had the earth opened, I could not have felt more as- 
tounded, and had it opened near me I should possibly 
have sprung in in my confusion. I had, as usual, simply 
made a fool of myself, and what to do I scarcely knew. 
At this instant the hostess arose, and the dinner was over 
and with it I feared my chance was over too. 

“ Give me a moment. I must have one moment,” I 
said as she passed me on her way out of the dining-room 
with the other ladies, her head held very high. 

She inclined her head and said something in so low a 
tone that I did not catch it. 

King James I. never detested tobacco as I did those 
cigars smoked that evening. When, at last, the host 
moved to return to the drawing-room, I bolted in only 
to be seized on by my hostess and presented to a middle- 
aged and waistless lady who wanted to ask me about 
the Pooles, whom she had heard I knew. She had 
heard that Lilian Poole had not married very happily. 
“ Did I know?” 

“No, I did not know,” nor, in fact, did I care, though 
I could not say so. Then another question: “Could 
I tell why all the men appeared to find Miss Leigh so 
very attractive?” Yes, I thought I could tell that — 
“Because she is very attractive.” 

“ Oh well, yes, I suppose she is — pretty and all that, 
with a sort of kitteny softness — but ” 

“There is no ‘but’ about it,” I interrupted brusquely 
— “she is just what you said — very attractive. For one 
478 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


thing, she has brains; for another, heart. Neither of 
them is so common as not to be attractive.” I thought 
of the young tigress concealed in that “kitteny softness” 
of which the lady spoke, and was determined not to per- 
mit the sly cat to see what I really felt. 

“ Of course, you know that she is going to marry Mr. 
Canter? He is the best parti in town.” 

“Of course, I do not know anything of the kind,” I 
said bowing. “Since I had the honor of sitting by her 
I am thinking of marrying her myself.” 

“I know it. They all fall at the first encounter!” 
exclaimed the lady, and I saw she had no humor, and 
decided to hedge. “I only mean that I do not believe 
Miss Leigh would marry Mr. Canter or any one else for 
his money, or for any other reason except the best.” 

Finally, having escaped from her, I was just making 
my way toward Miss Leigh, who had been standing up 
talking to two men who on entering the room had 
promptly sought her out, when a servant entered and 
spoke to the hostess, who immediately crossed over and 
gave his message to Miss Leigh. “Mr. James Canter 
has called for you; must you go ?” 

“Yes, I fear I must.” So with hardly a glance at me 
she passed out, leaving the room so dark that I thought 
the lights had been dimmed, but I discovered that it was 
only that Miss Eleanor Leigh had left. I could not in 
decency leave at once, though I confess the place had 
lost its charm for me, especially since I learned that Miss 
Leigh’s escort for the ball was Mr. James Canter. I 
had other reasons than jealousy for preferring that he 
479 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

should not be Eleanor Leigh’s escort. In my medi- 
tations that night as I walked the streets, Mr. James 
Canter held a somewhat conspicuous place. 

James Canter was possibly the most attentive of all 
the beaux Miss Leigh had, and they were more numer- 
ous than I at that time had any idea of. He was pro- 
spectively among the wealthiest young men in the city, 
for his father, who idolized him, was one of the largest 
capitalists in the State. He was, as the stout lady had 
said, certainly esteemed by ambitious mammas among 
the most advantageous 'partis the city could boast of. 
And he was of all, without doubt, the most talked of. 
Moreover, he had many friends, was lavish in the ex- 
penditure of his money beyond the dream of extrava- 
gance, and what was called, not without some reason, 
a good fellow. Before I met him I had already had a 
glimpse of him as he “ bucked ” against his rival, Count 
Pushkin, on the night when, dejected and desperate, I, 
in a fit of weakness, went into the gambling-house deter- 
mined to stake my last dollar on the turn of the wheel, 
and the sight of Pushkin saved me. But it was after I 
met him that I came to know what the pampered young 
man was. I was beginning now to be thrown with some 
of the lawyers and this had led to further acquaintances, 
among them young Canter. At first, I rather liked him 
personally, for he was against Pushkin and his gay 
manner was attractive. He was good-looking enough 
after the fleshly kind — a big, round, blondish man, only 
he was too fat and at twenty-eight had the waist and 
jowl of a man of forty who had had too many dinners 
480 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 

and drunk too much champagne. But when I came to 
know him I could not see that he had a shred of prin- 
ciple of any kind whatsoever. His reputation among 
his friends was that had he applied himself to business, 
he would have made a reputation equal to his father’s, 
which was that of a shrewd, far-sighted, cool-headed 
man of business who could “see a dollar as far as the 
best of them,” but that he was squandering his talents 
in sowing a crop of wild oats so plentiful that it was 
likely to make a hole even in his father’s accumulated 
millions, and its reaping might be anywhere between 
the poor-house and the grave. I knew nothing of this 
at the time, and after I came to know him as I did later, 
my judgment of him took form from the fact that I 
discovered he not only did not tell the truth, but had 
lost the power even to recognize it. Still, I think my 
real appraisement of him came when I discovered that 
he was paying assiduous attentions to Miss Leigh. I 
could not help remarking the frequency with which I 
found his name in juxtaposition with hers in the pub- 
lished accounts of social functions, where “Mr. Canter 
led the cotillion with Miss Leigh,” or “Mr. Canter drove 
his coach with Miss Leigh on the box seat,” etc., etc., and 
as my acquaintance began to extend among the young 
men about town, I heard more than occasional con- 
jectures as to their future. It appeared to be accepted 
rather as a matter of course that the result lay entirely 
with the young man. It was a view that I fiercely re- 
jected in my heart, but I could say nothing beyond a 
repudiation of such a view in general. 

481 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

In view of my knowledge of Mr. Canter, it was 
natural enough that I should be enraged to find him 
the escort of Eleanor Leigh, and I fear my temper 
rather showed itself in the conversation which took 
place and which soon became general, partly because 
of the earnestness with which I expressed my views 
on the next subject that came up. The two or three 
young girls of the company had left at the same time 
with Miss Leigh, and the ladies who remained were, 
for the most part, married women of that indefinite 
age which follows youth after a longer or shorter in- 
terval. They had all travelled and seen a good deal 
of the world, and they knew a good deal of it; at least, 
some of them did and they thought that they knew 
more than they actually did know. 

They agreed with more unanimity than they had 
yet shown on any subject that America was hopelessly 
bourgeois. Listening to them, I rather agreed with 
them. 

“Take our literature, our stage, our novels,” said 
one, a blonde lady of some thirty-five years, though she 
would, possibly, have repudiated a lustrum and a half of 
the measure. 

“You differentiate the literature and the novels?” 
I interrupted. 

“Yes. I might — but — I mean the lot. How pro- 
vincial they are!” 

“Yes, they appear so. Well?” 

“They do not dare to discuss anything large and 
vital.” 


482 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


“Oh! yes, they dare. They are daring enough, but 
they don’t know how — they are stupid.” 

“No, they are afraid.” 

“Afraid? Of what?” 

“Of public opinion — of the bourgeois so-called 
virtue of the middle class who control everything.” 

“That is the only valid argument I ever heard in 
favor of the bourgeois,” I said. 

“What do you mean? Don’t you agree with me?” 

“ I certainly do not. I may not seek virtue and ensue 
it; but at least I revere it.” 

“Do you mean that you think we should not write or 
talk of anything — forbidden?” 

“That depends on what you mean by forbidden. If 
you mean ” 

“I think there should be no subject forbidden,” in- 
terrupted the lady by whom I had sat at table, a stout 
and tightly laced person of some forty summers. “Why 
shouldn’t I talk of any subject I please?” She seemed 
to appeal to me, so I answered her. 

“I do not at this instant think of any reason except 
that it might not be decent.” 

This raised an uncertain sort of laugh and appeared 
for a moment to stagger her; but she was game, and 
rallied. 

“I know — that is the answer I always get.” 

“Because it is the natural answer.” 

“But I want to know why? Why is it indecent?” 

“Simply because it is. Indecent means unseemly. 
Your sex were slaves, they were weaker physically, less 
483 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

robust; they were made beasts of burden, were beaten 
and made slaves. Then men, for their own pleasure, 
lifted them up a little and paid court to them, and finally 
the idea and age of chivalry came — based on the high 
Christian morality. You were placed on a pinnacle. 
Men loved and fought for your favor and made it the 
guerdon of their highest emprise, guarded you with a 
mist of adoration, gave you a halo, worshipped you 
as something cleaner and better and purer than them- 
selves; built up a wall of division and protection for 
you. Why should you go and cast it down, fling it away, 
and come down in the mire and dust and dirt ? ” 

“But I don’t want to be adored — set up on a pedes- 
tal.” 

“Then you probably will not be,” interrupted my 
deaf neighbor. 

“I want to be treated as an equal — as an — an — in- 
telligent being.” 

“I should think that would depend on yourself. I 
do not quite understand whom you wish to be the equal 
of — of men? Men are a very large class — some are 
very low indeed.” 

“Oh! You know what I mean — of course, I don’t 
mean that sort.” 

“You mean gentlemen?” 

“Certainly.” 

“Then I assure you you cannot discuss indecent sub- 
jects in mixed company; gentlemen never do. Nor 
write coarse books — gentlemen never do nowadays — 
nor discuss them either.” 


484 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


"Do you mean to say that great novelists never dis- 
cuss such questions ?” she demanded triumphantly. 

"No, but it is all in the manner — the motive. I 
have no objection to the matter — generally, provided it 
be properly handled — but the obvious intention — the 
rank indecentness of it. See how Scott or George Eliot, 
or Tolstoi or Turgenieff, or, later on, even Zola, handles 
such vital themes. How different their motive from the 
reeking putrescence of the so-called problem-novel.” 

"Oh! dear! they must be very bad indeed!” exclaimed 
a lady, shocked by the sound of my adjectives. 

"They are,” suddenly put in my oldest neighbor, who 
had been listening intently with his hand behind his 
ear, "only you ladies don’t know how bad they are or 
you would not discuss them with men.” 

This closed the discussion and a group of ladies near 
me suddenly branched off into another subject and one 
which interested me more than the discussion of such 
literature as the trash which goes by the name of the 
problem novel. 

"Who is Eleanor Leigh in love with?” asked some 
one irrelevantly — a Mrs. Arrow — whose mind appeared 
much given to dwelling on such problems. She ad- 
dressed the company generally, and possibly my former 
neighbor at the table in particular. 

"Is she in love?” asked another. 

" Certainly, I never saw any one so changed. Why, 
she has been moping so I scarcely know her — and she 
has taken to charity. That’s a sure sign. I think it 
must be that young preacher she talks so much about.” 
485 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“ Well, I don't know who she is in love with," said the 
lady who had sat next to me at dinner, ‘‘but I know 
who she is going to marry. She is going to marry 
Jim Canter. Her aunt has made that match." 

“Oh! do you think so?" demanded our hostess, who 
had joined the group. “ I don’t believe she will marry 
any one she is not in love with, and I can’t believe she 
is in love with that fat, coarse, dissipated creature. He 
is simply repulsive to me." 

I began to conceive an even higher opinion of my 
hostess than I had already had. 

“I don’t think it is anybody," continued our hostess. 

/‘Oh! yes, you do — you think it is Doctor Capon." 

“Doctor Capon! It is much more likely to be Mr. 
Marvel." 

“Mr. Marvel! Who is he? — Oh, yes, the young 
preacher who turned Jew and was put out of his church. 
I remember now." 

“Is Mr. Marvel a Jew?" I inquired. “Oh! yes, in- 
deed, and a terrible Socialist." 

“Ah, I did not know that." 

“I heard she was going to marry a Jew," interjected 
another lady corroboratively, “but I must say it looks 
very much like Mr. Canter to me." 

“ Oh ! she wouldn’t marry a Jew ? ’’ suggested Mrs. Ar- 
row. “ I heard there was a young lawyer or something.’’ 

“She would if she’d a mind to," said our hostess. 

“I still stand by Doctor Capon," declared Mrs. 
Arrow. “He is so refined." 

“And I by Jim Canter — I thought at one time it was 

486 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


Count Pushkin; but since Milly McSheen has taken 
him away, the other seems to be the winning card. I 
must say I think the count would have been the 
better match of the two.” 

“ I don’t think that,” exclaimed the other lady. “ And 
neither would you, if you knew him.” 

“Possibly, she knows the other,” I suggested. 

“Oh! no — you see she could get rid of the count, if 
he proved too objectionable, and then she would still 
have the title.” 

“I never heard a more infamous proposal,” I said in 
an aside to our hostess. She laughed. “ No, did you — 
but she was only jesting ” 

“Not she!” I was in no mood to tolerate jesting on 
the subject of Eleanor Leigh’s marriage. My aside to 
our hostess drew the attention of the others to me, and 
Mrs. Arrow suddenly said, “Mr. Glave, which would 
you say? You know them both, don’t you?” 

“I do.” 

“Well, which would you say?” 

“Neither,” said I. I wanted to add that I would 
cheerfully murder them both before I would allow 
either of them to destroy Eleanor Leigh’s life; but I 
contented myself with my brief reply. 

“Oh! Mr. Glave is evidently one of her victims,” 
laughed our hostess, for which I was grateful to her. 

I came away from my friend’s with the heroic de- 
termination to prevent Miss Leigh’s life from being 
ruined and to accomplish this by the satisfactory meth- 
od of capturing her myself. My resolve was a little 
487 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

dampened by reading in a newspaper next day the 
head-lines announcing an “Important Engagement,” 
which though no names were used pointed clearly 
at Miss Leigh and the hopeful heir and partner of 
Mr. James Canter, Sr. Reading carefully the article, 
I found that the engagement was only believed to 
exist. I felt like a reprieved criminal. 

He who has not felt the pangs of a consuming pas- 
sion has no conception of the true significance of life. 
The dull, cold, indifferent lover knows nothing of the 
half-ecstatic anguish of the true lover or the wholly 
divine joy of reconciliation even in anticipation. As 
(well may the frozen pole dream of the sun-bathed tropic. 
It was this joy that I hugged in my heart even in face 
of the declaration of her expected engagement. 

Next day I was talking to two or three young fellows 
when Canter and some episode in which he had figured 
as rather more defiant than usual of public opinion, 
came up, and one of them said to another, a friend of 
his and an acquaintance of mine, “What is Jim going 
to do when he gets married ? He’ll have to give up his 
‘ friends ’ then. He can’t be running two establishments.” 

“Oh! Jim ain’t going to get married. He’s just 
fooling around.” 

“Bet you — the old man’s wild for it.” 

“ Bet you — not now. He can’t. Why, that woman — ” 

“Oh! he can pension her off.” 

“Her?— which her?” 

“Well, all of ’em. If he don’t get married soon, he 
won’t be fit to marry.” 


488 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


It was here that I entered the conversation. They 
had not mentioned any name — they had been too gen- 
tlemanly to do so. But I knew whom they had in mind, 
and I was inwardly burning. 

“He isn’t fit to marry now,” I said suddenly. 

“What!” They both turned to me in surprise. 

“No man who professes to be in love with any good 
woman,” I said, “and lives as he lives is fit for any 
woman to marry. I am speaking generally,” I added, 
to guard against the suspicion that I knew whom they 
referred to. “I know Mr. Canter but slightly; but 
what I say applies to him too.” 

“Oh! you’d cut out a good many,” laughed one of 
the young men with a glance at his friend. 

“No, gentlemen, I stand on my proposition. The 
man who is making love to a pure woman with a har- 
lot’s kisses on his lips is not worthy of either. He ought 
to be shot.” 

“ There ’d be a pretty big exodus if your views were 
carried out,” said one of them. 

“Well, I don’t want to pose as any saint. I am no 
better than some other men ; but, at least, I have some 
claim to decency, and that is fundamental. Your two- 
establishment gentry are no more nor less than a lot of 
thorough-paced blackguards.” 

They appeared to be somewhat impressed by my 
earnestness, even though they laughed at it. “There 
are a good many of them,” they said. “Your friends, 
the Socialists ” 

“Yes. I know. The ultra-Socialist’s views I repro- 
489 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

bate, but, at least, he is sincere. He is against any 
formal hard and fast contract, and his motive is, how- 
ever erroneous, understandable. He believes it would 
result in an uplift — in an increase of happiness for all. 
He is, of course, hopelessly wrong. But here is a man 
who is debasing himself and others — all others — and, 
above all, the one he is pretending to exalt above all. 
I say he is a low-down scoundrel to do it. He is pros- 
tituting the highest sentiment man has ever imagined.” 

“ Well, at any rate, you are vehement,” said one. 

“ You’ve cut Jim out,” said the other. 

The conversation took place in a sort of lounging- 
room adjoining a down-town cafd frequented by young 
men. At this moment who should walk in but Mr. 
James Canter himself. The talk ceased as suddenly 
as cut-off steam, and when one of the young men after 
an awkward silence made a foolish remark about the 
fine day, which was in reality rainy and cold, Canter’s 
curiosity was naturally excited. 

“What were you fellows talking about? Women?” 

“No,” said one of the others — “nothing particular.” 

“Yes!” I said, “we were — talking about women.” 

“ Whose women ? ” 

“Yours.” I looked him steadily in the eye. 

He started, but recovered himself. 

“Which of ’em?” he inquired as he flung himself into 
a chair and looked around for a match for the cigarette 
which he took from a jewel-studded gold case. “I 
am rather well endowed with them at present. What 
were you saying?” 


490 


THE FLAG OF TRUCE 


I repeated my remark about the two-establishment 
gentry. His face flushed angrily; but my steady eye 
held him in check and he took a long, inhaling 
breath. 

“Well, I don’t give a blank what you think about it, 
or anything else.” He expelled the smoke from his 
lungs. 

“Perhaps — but that does not affect the principle. 
It stands. You may not care about the Rock of Gib- 
raltar; but it stands and is the key to the situation.” 

He was in a livid rage, and I was prepared for the 
attack which I expected him to make; but he restrained 
himself. His forte was insolence. 

“You teach Sunday-school, don’t you?” 

I thought this was a reference to one whose name I 
did not mean his lips to sully, and I determined to fore- 
stall him. 

“I do,” I said quietly. “I teach for Mr. Marvel.” 

“I know — the psalm-singing parson who has made 
all that trouble in this town — he and his Jew partner. 
We are going to break them up.” 

“Both are men whose shoes, you are not fit to clean; 
and as to making trouble, the trouble was made by 
those a good deal nearer you than John Marvel — your 
precious firm and your side-partners — Coll McSheen 
and David Wringman.” 

“Well, you’d better confine your labors to your dirty 
Jews and not try to interfere in the affairs of gen- 
tlemen.” 

“As to the latter, I never interfere in the affairs of 
491 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

gentlemen, and as to the dirty Jews, I assure you they 
are not as dirty as you are; for their dirt is all outside 
while yours is within.” 

I had supposed he would resent this, but he had his 
reasons for not doing so, though they were none too 
creditable to him. Mr. Canter was too bold with 
women and not bold enough with men. And a little 
later it transpired that with one woman, at least, he 
was as tame as he was with the other sex. The woman 
the young men referred to kept him in fear of his life 
for years, and he had neither the physical nor moral 
courage to break away from her. 


( 


492 


XXXV 


MR. LEIGH HAS A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE MADE 
HIM 

Though I had not acted on the principle, I had 
always felt that a young man had no right to pay his 
addresses to a young lady without giving some ac- 
count of himself to her father, or whoever might stand 
in the relation of her natural protector; certainly that 
it was incumbent on a gentleman to do so. I felt, there- 
fore, that it was necessary for me before proceeding 
further in my pursuit of Eleanor Leigh to declare my 
intention to her father. My declaration to her had 
been the result of a furious impulse to which I had 
yielded; but now that I had cooled, my principle re- 
asserted itself. One trouble was that I did not know 
Mr. Leigh. I determined to consult John Marvel, and 
I had a sneaking hope that he might not think it neces- 
sary for me to speak about it to him. I accordingly 
went around to his room and after he had gotten 
through with a tramp or two, who had come to bleed 
him of any little pittance which he might have left, he 
came in. I bolted into the middle of my subject. 

“ John, I am in love.” I fancied that his countenance 
changed slightly — I thought, with surprise. 

493 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

"Yes. I know you are.” 

"How did you know it? I am in love with Eleanor 
Leigh.” His countenance changed a shade more, and 
he looked away and swallowed with a little embarrass- 
ment. 

"Yes. I know that too.” 

™How did you know it?” 

He smiled. John sometimes smiled rather sadly. 

"I want you to help me.” 

"How?” 

"I don’t know. I have to go and ask Mr. Leigh.” 

"What! Has she accepted you?” His face was, 
as I recalled later, full of feeling of some kind. 

"No. I wish to Heaven she had! If anything, she 
has rejected me, — but that is nothing. I am going to 
win her and marry her. I am going to ask her father’s 
permission to pay my addresses to her, and then I don’t 
care whether he gives it or not. — Yes, I do care, too; 
but whether he does or not I am going to win her and 
him and marry her.” 

"Henry,” he said gently, "you deserve to win her ; 
and I believe, maybe — if — ” He went off into a 
train of reflection, which I broke in on. 

"I don’t think I do,” I said honestly, sobered by his 
gentleness; "but that makes no difference. I love her 
better than all the rest of the world, and I mean to win 
her or die trying. So, none of your ‘maybes’ and ‘if s’. 
I want your advice how to proceed. I have not a cent 
in the world; am, in fact, in debt; and I feel that I 
must tell her father so.” 


494 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 


“That will scarcely tend to strengthen your chances 
with him,” said John. My spirits rose. 

“I can’t help that. I feel that I must tell him!” 
Though I spoke so grandly, my tone contained a query. 

“Yes, that’s right,” said John decisively. His mind 
had been working slowly. My spirits drooped. 

I was not conscious till then how strongly I had hoped 
that he might disagree with me. My heart quite sank 
at the final disappearance of my hope. But I was in for 
it now. My principle was strong enough when strength- 
ened by John’s invincible soundness. 

I walked into the building in which Mr. Leigh had 
his offices, boldly enough. If my heart thumped, at 
least, I had myself well in hand. The clerk to whom 
I addressed myself said he was not in, but was ex- 
pected in shortly. Could he do anything for me ? No, 
I wanted to see Mr. Leigh personally. Would I take 
a seat? 

I took a chair, but soon made up my mind that if I 
sat there five minutes I would not be able to speak. I 
sat just one minute. At least, that was the time my 
watch registered, though I early discovered that there 
was no absolute standard of the divisions of time. The 
hands of a clock may record with regularity the revo- 
lutions of the earth, the moon, or the stars; but not the 
passage of time as it affects the human mind. The 
lover in his mistress’ presence, and the lover waiting 
for his mistress, or for that matter, for her father, has 
no equal gauge of measurement of Time’s passage. 
With the one the winged sandals of Mercury were not 
495 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

so fleet, with the other, the leaden feet of Chronos were 
not so dull. 

I decided that I must get out into the air; so, mum- 
bling something to the surprised clerk about returning 
shortly, I bolted from the office and walked around the 
block. As I look back at it now, I was a rather pitiable 
object I was undoubtedly in what, if I were speaking 
and not writing, I should call “the deuce of a funk”; 
but for the sake of fine English, I will term it a panic. 
My heart was beating, my mouth was dry, my knees 
were weak. I came very near darting off every time I 
reached a comer, and I should certainly have done so 
but for the knowledge that if I did I should never get 
up the courage to come back again. So I stuck and 
finally screwed up my courage to return to the office; 
but every object and detail in those streets through 
which I passed that morning are fastened in my mind 
as if they had been stamped there by a stroke of light- 
ning. 

When I walked in again the clerk said, Yes, Mr. 
Leigh had returned. Would I take a seat for a mo- 
ment ? I sat down in what was a chair of torture. A 
man under certain stress is at a great disadvantage in a 
chair. If he be engaged in reflection, the chair is a 
proper place for him; but if in action, he should stand. 
Every moment was an added burden for me to carry, 
which was not lightened when young Canter walked 
out of the office and with a surly glance at me passed on. 

The clerk took my card, entered the door, and closed 
it after him. I heard a dull murmur of voices within, 
496 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 

and then after what appeared to me an interminable 
wait, he reappeared and silently motioned me in. I 
hated him for months for that silent gesture. It 
seemed like Fate. 

As I entered, a man past middle age with a strong face, 
a self-contained mouth and jaw, a calm brow, and keen 
eyes glanced up from a note he was writing and said: 

“Excuse me a moment if you please. Won’t you 
take a seat?” 

I sat with the perspiration breaking out as I watched 
the steady run of his pen over the sheet. I felt as a 
criminal must who watches the judge preparing to 
pass sentence. At length he was through. Then he 
turned to me. 

“Well, Mr. Glave?” 

I plunged at once into my subject. 

“Mr. Leigh, I am a young lawyer here, and I have 
come to ask your permission to pay my addresses to 
your daughter.” 

“Wha-t!” His jaw positively fell, he was so sur- 
prised. But I did not give him time. 

“I have no right to ask it — to ask any favor of you, 
much less a favor which I feel is the greatest any man 
can ask at your hands. But I — love her — and — I — I 
simply ask that you will give me your consent to win 
her if I can.” I was very frightened, but my voice had 
steadied me, and I was gazing straight in his eyes. 

“Does my daughter know of this extraor — of this?” 
He asked the question very slowly, and his eyes were 
holding mine. 


497 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I hardly know what she may divine. I told her 
once that I thought a gentleman should not — should 
not try to marry a gir — a lady until he had asked her 
father’s permission, and she is so clear-minded that I 
hardly know ” 

“Does she know of your attachment?” 

“Yes, sir. I mean, I told her once — I ” 

“ I thought you said you thought a gentleman had no 
right to speak to her until he had gained her father’s 
consent!” A slight scorn had crept into his face. 

“Yes, sir, I did — something like that, though not 
quite that — but ” 

“How then do you reconcile the two?” He spoke 
calmly, and I observed a certain likeness to his daughter. 

“ I do not — I cannot. I do not try. I only say that 
in my cooler moments my principle is stronger than my 
action. I gave way to my feelings once, and declared 
myself, but when I got hold of myself I felt I should come 
to you and give you some account of myself.” 

“I see.” I began to hope again, as he reflected. 

“Does my daughter reciprocate this — ah — attach- 
ment? 

“No, sir. I wish to God she did; but I hope that 
possibly in time— I might prevail on her by my devo- 
tion.” I was stammering along awkwardly enough. 
“Ah!” 

“ I am only asking your permission to declare myself 
her suitor to try to win — what I would give the world 
to win, if I had it. I have no hope except that which 
comes from my devotion, and my determination to win. 
498 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 


I have nothing in the world except my practice; but 
mean to succeed.” I had got more confidence now. I 
went on to give him an account of myself, and I tried 
to tell him the truth, though doubtless I gave myself 
the natural benefit of a friendly historian. I told him 
frankly of my unfortunate experience in the matter of 
the contribution to the Trumpet — though I did not con- 
ceal my views on the main subject, of the corporation’s 
relation to the public. I must say that Mr. Leigh ap- 
peared an interested auditor, though he did not help 
me out much. At the end, he said: 

“Mr. Glave, I have some confidence in my daughter, 
sufficient — I may say — to have decided for some time 
back to allow her to manage her own affairs, and unless 
there were some insuperable objection in any given case, 
I should not interfere. This is one of the vital affairs 
in life in which a man has to fight his own battle. I 
refer you to my daughter. If there were an insuper- 
able objection, of course I should interfere.” I won- 
dered if he knew of Canter, and took some hope from 
his words. 

The only thing that gave me encouragement was that 
he said, just as I was leaving: 

“Mr. Glave, I used to know your father, I believe. 
We were at college together.” I think I must have 
shown some feeling in my face, for he added, “We were 
very good friends,” and held out his hand. I came 
away drenched with perspiration; but I felt that I had 
made a step in the direction of winning Eleanor Leigh, 
and almost as if I had gained a friend. At least, I 
499 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

liked him, as self-contained as he was, for he looked 
at times like his daughter. 

That evening Miss Leigh observed something un- 
usual in her father’s expression, and finally, after waiting 
a little while for him to disclose what he had on his mind, 
she could stand it no longer. 

“Dad, what is it?” she demanded. 

Mr. Leigh gazed at her quizzically. 

“Well, I have had a rather strenuous day. In the 
first place, I got a letter from Henry Glave.” Miss 
Eleanor’s eyes opened. 

“From Henry Glave! What in the world is he writ- 
ing to you about ? ” . 

“ He has offered me assistance,” said Mr. Leigh. He 
took from his pocket a letter, and tossed it across the 
table to her, observing her with amusement as her ex- 
pression changed. It, possibly, was not the Henry 
Glave she had had in mind. 

As she read, her face brightened. “Isn’t that fine! 
I thought he would — ” She stopped suddenly. 

“You wrote to him?” said Mr. Leigh. 

“Yes, but I didn’t know he would. I only asked his 
advice — I thought maybe, he possibly might — knowing 
how he liked you. This will help us out? You will 
accept his offer, of course?” 

Mr. Leigh nodded. “I am considering it. It was 
certainly very good in him. Not every man is as grate- 
ful these times. My only question is whether I ought 
to accept his offer.” 

“Why not?” 


500 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 


Mr. Leigh did not answer for a moment, he was 
deep in reflection, reviewing a past in which two older 
men who bore my name had borne a part, and was try- 
ing to look forward into the future. Presently he re- 
plied: 

“Well, the fact is, I am very hard pressed.” 

For answer Eleanor sprang up and ran around to 
him, and throwing her arm about his neck, kissed him. 
“You poor, dear old dad. I knew you were in trouble; 
but I did not like to urge you till you got ready. Tell 
me about it.” 

Mr. Leigh smiled. It was a patronizing way she 
had with him which he liked while he was amused by 
it. 

“Yes. I’m — the fact is, I’m pretty near — ” He 
paused and reflected; then began again, “What would 
you say if I were to tell you that I am almost at the end 
of my resources ? ” 

The girl’s countenance fell for a second, then bright- 
ened again almost immediately. 

“I shouldn’t mind it a bit, except for you.” 

Mr. Leigh heaved a sigh which might have been a 
sigh of relief. 

“You don’t know what it means, my dear.” 

“Oh! Yes, Ido.” 

“ No-o. It means giving up — everything. Not only 
all luxuries; but — ” He gazed about him at the 
sumptuous surroundings in his dining-room, “but all 
this — everything. Horses, carriages, servants, pictures 
— everything. Do you understand?” 

501 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“ Everything ?” Eleanor’s voice and look betrayed 
that she was a little startled. 

“Yes,” said her father with a nod and a sigh. “If I 
assign, it would all have to go, and we should have to 
begin afresh.” 

“Very well. I am ready. Of course, I don’t want 
to be broke; but I am ready. Whatever you think is 
right. And I would rather give up everything — every- 
thing, than have you worried as you have been for ever 
so long. I have seen it.” 

“Nelly, you are a brick,” said her father fondly, 
looking at her in admiration. “How did you ever hap' 
pen to be your Aunt Sophy’s niece?” 

“Her half-niece,” corrected the girl, smiling. 

“It was the other half,” mused Mr. Leigh. 

“Tell me about it, father. How did it come ? When 
did it happen?” she urged, smoothing tenderly the hair 
on his brow. 

“It didn’t happen. It came. It has been coming 
for a long time. It is the conditions ” 

“I know, those dreadful conditions. How I hate to 
hear the word! We used to get them when we were at 
Miss de Pense’s school, — we had to work them off — 
and now people are always talking about them.” 

“Well, these conditions,” said Mr. Leigh smiling, 
“seem a little more difficult to work off. I am rated as 
belonging to the capitalists and as opposed to the work- 
ing class. The fact is I am not a capitalist; for my 
properties are good only while in active use, all my 
available surplus has gone into their betterment for the 
502 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 


public use, and I am a harder-worked man than any 
laborer or workman in one of my shops or on one of my 
lines.” 

“That you are!” exclaimed his daughter. 

“I belong to the class that produces, and we are 
ground between the upper and the nether millstones. 
Do you see?” 

Eleanor expressed her assent. 

“The fire, of course, cost us a lot.” 

“It was set on fire,” interrupted his daughter. “I 
know it.” 

“Well, I don’t know — possibly. It looks so. Any- 
how, it caught us at the top notch, and while the in- 
surance amounts to something, the actual loss was in- 
calculable. Then came the trouble with the bank. 
So long as I was there they knew they could not go 
beyond the law. So Canter and the others got together, 
and I got out, and, of course ” 

“I know,” said his daughter. 

“They asked me to remain, but — I preferred to be 
free.” 

“So do I.” 

“I had an overture to-day from the Canters,” said 
Mr. Leigh, after a moment of reflection. “I do not 
quite know what it means, but I think I do.” 

“ What was it ? ” Eleanor looked down with her face 
slightly averted. 

“Jim Canter came from his father to propose — to 
suggest a modus vivendi, as it were. It means that 
they have started a blaze they cannot extinguish — that 
503 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

they are having trouble with their people, and fear that 
our people are coming around, but it means something 
further, too, I think.” Mr. Leigh ceased talking, and 
appeared to be reflecting. 

“What?” said the girl, after waiting a moment. 

“You know — your aunt — however — ” He paused. 

She rose and faced him. 

“Father, I wouldn’t marry him to save his life — and 
I have told both him and Aunt Sophia so.” Mr. Leigh 
gave a sigh of relief. 

“You, of course, declined the proposal they made?” 
said Eleanor. 

“I did — I think they have broken with the Argand 
interest. I saw your aunt to-day, and had a talk with 
her. I think her eyes are opened at last. I told her a 
few plain truths.” 

He dropped into reflection and a quizzical expression 
came into his eyes. 

“I had a very remarkable thing happen to me 
to-day.” 

“What was it?” demanded his daughter. 

“ I had an offer of marriage made me.” 

Eleanor Leigh’s face changed — at first it grew a 
shade whiter, then a shade redder. 

“ I know who it was,” she said quickly. 

“Oh!” Mr. Leigh shut his lips firmly. “I did not 
know.” 

“She is a cat! She has been sending me flowers 
and opera tickets all winter, and deluging me with 
invitations. I knew she was up to something.” She 
504 


A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE 


spoke with growing feeling, as her father’s eyes rested 
on her placidly with an amused expression in them. “ I 
wouldn’t be such easy game. Why, dad, she’d bore 
you to death — and as to me, I wouldn’t live in the 
house with her — I couldn’t.” She stood with mantling 
cheek and flashing eye, a young Amazon girded for 
battle. 

“I will relieve you,” said her father. “It is not the 
feline-natured lady you have in mind; but a person 
quite different.” Miss Eleanor looked relieved. 

“Dad — it couldn’t be — it was not Aunt Sophia? 
That would explain a lot of things. You know I think 
she’s been laying some snares lately. She even forgave 
me when I told her the other evening that that was the 
last time I would ever accept an invitation from Mr. 
Canter, even as a favor to her. Dad, she’d make you 
miserable. You couldn’t.” 

“No,” said Mr. Leigh. “In fact, it was not a lady 
at all. It was a person of the opposite sex, and the 
proposal was for your hand.” 

“Dad! Who was it? Now, dad.” She moved 
around the table to him, as Mr. Leigh, with eyes twin- 
kling over his victory, shut his mouth firmly. “Dad, 
you’d just as well tell me at once, for you know I am 
going to know, so you might as well tell me and save 
yourself trouble. Who was it?” 

Mr. Leigh took her firmly by the arms and seated her 
on his knee. 

“Well, it was a young man who appeared quite in 
earnest.” 


505 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“It wasn’t — no, I know it wasn’t he — he wouldn’t 
have done that — and it wasn’t — ” (she pondered) “no, 
it wasn’t he — and it wasn’t — ” She suddenly paused. 
“Tell me, what did he say? How did you like him? 
What did you say to him ?” 

“So you have settled who it is. Perhaps, you sent 
him to me?” 

“Indeed, I did not, and I don’t know who it was. 
What did you tell him ?” 

“I told him you were of age ” 

“I am not. I am twenty.” 

“No, I told him you were too young — to think of 
such a thing ” 

“I am twenty,” repeated the girl. 

“That is what I told him,” said Mr. Leigh, “and 
that I thought you were able to take care of yourself.” 

The girl rested her chin on his head and went off in 
a reverie. 

“Dad, we must hold together,” she said. Her father 
drew her face down and kissed her silently. “ The man 
who takes you away from me will have to answer with 
his life,” he said. 

“ There is no one on earth who could,” said Eleanor. 


506 


XXXVI 


THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM 

It is a terrible thing for a man with a wife and chil- 
dren to see them wasting away with sheer starvation, to 
hear his babes crying for bread and his wife weeping 
because she cannot get it for them. Some men in such 
a situation drown their sorrow in drink; others take a 
bolder course, and defy the law or the rules of their 
order. 

The Railway Company, still being forced to run 
their cars, undertook to comply with the requirement, 
even though the protection of the police was withheld. 
The police were instructed, indeed, to be present and 
keep the peace, and a few were detailed, but it was 
known to both sides that no real protection would be 
granted. Coll McSheen’s order to the force bore this 
plainly on its face — so plainly that the conservative 
papers roundly denounced him for his hypocrisy, and 
for the first time began to side decisively with the 
company. 

The offer of increased wages to new men was openly 
scouted by the strikers generally. But in a few houses 
the situation was so terrible that the men yielded. One 
of these was the empty and fireless home of McNeil. 
The little Scotchman had had a bitter experience and 
had come through it victorious; but just as he was get- 
507 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

ting his head above water, the new strike had come — 
against his wishes and his vote. He had held on as 
long as he could — had held on till every article had gone 
— till his wife’s poor under raiment and his children’s 
clothes had gone for the few dollars they brought, and 
now he was face to face with starvation. He walked 
the streets day after day in company with a sad pro- 
cession of haggard men hunting for work, but they 
might as well have hunted on the arctic floes or in the 
vacant desert. For every stroke of work there were a 
hundred men. The answer was everywhere the same: 
“ We are laying men off; we are shutting down.” 

He returned home one night hungry and dejected 
to find his wife fainting with hunger and his children 
famished. “I will get you bread,” he said to the chil- 
dren, and he turned and went out. I always was glad 
that he came to me that night, though I did not know 
till afterward what a strait he was in. I did not have 
much to lend him, but I lent him some. His face was 
haggard with want; but it had a resolution in it that 
impressed me. 

“I will pay it back, sir, out of my first wages. I am 
going to work to-morrow.” 

“I am glad of that,” I said, for I thought he had 
gotten a place. 

The next morning at light McNeil walked through 
the pickets who shivered outside the car-barn, and en- 
tered the sheds just as their shouts of derision and 
anger reached him. “I have come to work,” he said 
simply. “My children are hungry.” 

508 


THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM 


The first car came out that morning, and on the plat- 
form stood McNeil, glum and white and grim, with a 
stout officer behind him. It ran down by the pickets, 
meeting with jeers and cries of “ Scab I scab!” and a 
fusillade of stones; but as the hour was early the crowd 
was a small one, and the car escaped. It was some 
two hours later when the car reappeared on its return. 
The news that a scab was running the car had spread 
rapidly, and the street near the terminus had filled with 
a crowd wild with rage and furiously bent on mischief. 
As the car turned into a street it ran into a throng that had 
been increasing for an hour and now blocked the way. 
An obstruction placed on the track brought the car to a 
stop as a roar burst from the crowd and a rush was made 
for the scab. The officer on the car used his stick with 
vigor enough, but the time had passed when one officer 
with only a club could hold back a mob. He was 
jerked off the platform, thrown do^m, and trampled 
underfoot. The car was boarded, and McNeil, fight- 
ing like a fury, was dragged out and mauled to death 
before any other officers arrived. When the police, in 
force, in answer to a riot-call, reached the spot a quarter 
of an hour later and dispersed the mob, it looked as if the 
sea had swept over the scene. The car was overturned 
and stripped to a mere broken shell; and on the ground 
a hundred paces away, with only a shred of bloody 
clothing still about it, lay the battered and mutilated 
trunk of what had been a man trying to make bread for 
his children, while a wild cry of hate and joy at the deed 
raged about the street. 


509 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

The men who were arrested easily proved that they 
were simply onlookers and had never been within fifty 
feet of the car. 

The riot made a fine story for the newspapers, and 
the headlines were glaring. The victim’s name was 
spelled according to the fancy of the reporter for each 
paper, and was correctly published only two days 
later. 

The press, except the Trumpet , while divided in its 
opinion on many points, combined in its denouncement 
of the murder of the driver, and called on the city au- 
thorities to awake to the gravity of the situation and put 
down violence. It was indeed high time. 

Moved by the similarity of the name to my friend 
McNeil, I walked over that afternoon to that part of the 
city where he had lived. It was one of the poorest 
streets of the poor section. The street on which I had 
lived at the old Pru miner’s, with its little hearth-rug 
yards, was as much better than it as the most fashion- 
able avenue was better than that. The morass, like a 
moving bog, had spread over it and was rapidly en- 
gulfing it. 

The sidewalks were filled with loafers, men and 
women who wore the gloomiest or surliest looks. As I 
passed slowly along, trying to read the almost obliterated 
numbers, I caught fragments of their conversation. A 
group of them, men and women, were talking about the 
man who had been killed and his family. The uni- 
versal assertion was that it served him right, and his 
family, too. I gleaned from their talk that the family 
510 


THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM 


had been boycotted even after he was dead, and that he 
had had to be buried by the city, and, what was 
more, that the cruel ostracism still went on against his 
family. 

“Ay-aye, let ’em starve, we’ll teach ’em to take 
the bread out of our mouths,” said one woman, while 
another told gleefully of her little boy throwing stones 
at the girl as she came home from outside somewhere. 
She had given him a cake for doing it. The others ap- 
plauded both of these. The milk of human kindness 
appeared to be frozen in their breasts. 

“Much good it will do you! Do you get any more 
money for doing it?” said an old man with round 
shoulders and a thin face; but even he did not seem 
to protest on account of the cruelty. It was rather a 
snarl. Two or three young men growled at him; 
but he did not appear afraid of them; he only snarled 
back. 

I asked one of the men which house was the one I 
was seeking. He told me, while half a dozen hooted 
something about the “scab.” 

When I came to the door pointed out I had no diffi- 
culty in recognizing it. The panels and sides were 
“daubed” up with mud, which still stuck in many 
places, showing the persecution which had been carried 
on. Inside, I never saw a more deplorable sight. The 
poor woman who came to the door, her face drawn with 
pain and white with terror, and her eyes red with weep- 
ing, would not apparently have been more astonished 
to have found a ghost on the steps. She gave a hasty, 
511 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

frightened glance up the street in both directions, and 
moaned her distress. 

“Won’t you step inside?” she asked, more to get the 
door closed between her and the terror of the street 
than out of any other feeling; and when I was inside, 
she asked me over again what I wanted. She could not 
take in that I had called out of charity; she appeared to 
think that it was some sort of official visit. When she 
found out, however, that such was my object, the effect 
was instantaneous. At first she could not speak at all; 
but after a little she was calm enough and poured out 
ail her woes. She went over anew how her husband 
had come over from Scotland several years before and 
they had been quite comfortably fixed. How he had 
gotten work, and had belonged to the union, and they 
had done well. He had, however, been obliged by the 
union to strike, and they had spent all the money they 
had, and in addition to that had gotten into debt. So, 
when the strike was over, although he obtained work 
again, he was in debt, and the harassment of it made 
him ill. Then how he had come North to find work, 
and had had a similar experience. All this I knew. It 
was just then that her last baby was born and that her 
little child died, and the daughter of the employer of her 
husband was so kind to her, that when her husband 
got well again, there was talk of a strike to help others 
who were out, and she made him resign from the union. 
Here she broke down. Presently, however, she re- 
covered her composure. They had come to her then, 
she said, and told her they would ruin him. 

512 


THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM 


“But I did not think they would kill him, sir,” she 
sobbed. “He tried to get back, but Wringman kept 
him out. That man murdered him, sir.” 

There was not a lump of coal in the house; but her 
little girl had gone for some cinders, while she minded 
the baby. She had to go where she was not known — a 
long way, she said — as the children would not let her 
pick any where she used to get them. 

When I came out I found that it had turned many 
degrees colder during the short time I was in the house, 
and the blast cut like a knife. The loafers on the street 
had thinned out under the piercing wind; but those 
who yet remained jeered as I passed on. I had not got- 
ten very far when I came on a child, a little girl, creep- 
ing along. She was bending almost double under the 
weight of a bag of cinders, and before I reached her my 
sympathy was excited by the sight of her poor little 
bare hands and wrists, which were almost blue with 
cold. Her head, gray with the sifted ashes, was tucked 
down to keep her face from the cutting wind, and when 
I came nearer I heard her crying — not loud; but rather 
wailing to herself. 

“What is the matter, little girl ?” I asked. 

“My hands are so cold — Oh! Oh! Oh!” she sobbed. 

“Here, let me warm them.” I took the bag and set 
it down, and took her little ashy hands in mine to try 
and warm them, and then for the first time I discovered 
that it was my little girl, Janet. She was so changed 
that I scarcely knew her. Her little pinched face, like 
her hair, was covered with ashes. Her hands were ice. 
513 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

When I had gotten some warmth into them I took 
off my gloves and put them on her, and I picked up 
her bag and carried it back for her. My hands 
nearly froze, but somehow I did not mind it. I had 
such a warm feeling about my heart. I wonder 
men don’t often take off their gloves for little poor 
children. 

I marched with her through the street near her house, 
expecting to be hooted at, and I should not have minded 
it; for I was keyed up and could have fought an army. 
But no one hooted. If they looked rather curiously at 
me, they said nothing. 

As I opened the door to leave, on the steps stood my 
young lady. It is not often that a man opens a door 
and finds an angel on the step outside; but I did it that 
evening. I should not have been more surprised if I 
had found a real one. But if one believes that angels 
never visit men, these days, he should have seen Eleanor 
Leigh as she stood there. She did not appear at all 
surprised. Her eyes looked right into mine, and I took 
courage enough to look into hers for an instant. I have 
never forgotten them. They were like deep pools, 
clear and bottomless, filled with light. She did not look 
at all displeased and I did not envy St. Martin. 

All she said was, “How do you do, Mr. Glave?” It 
was quite as if she expected to find me there — and 
she had. She had seen me stop little Janet and put 
the gloves on her. She was on her way to the house, 
and she had stopped and waited, and then had fol- 
lowed us. I did not know this until long afterward; 

514 


THE RIOT AND ITS VICTIM 

but I asked her to let me wait and see her home, and 
so I did. 

That walk was a memorable one to me. The period 
of explanations was past. I dared harbor the hope 
that I was almost in sight of port. When I put her on 
the car, she was so good as to say her father would be 
glad to see me some time at their home, and I thought 
she spoke with just the least little shyness, which made 
me hope that she herself would not be sorry. 

When I left her, I went to see my old Drummer, and 
told him of the outrages which had been perpetrated on 
the poor woman. It was worth while seeing him. He 
was magnificent. As long as I was talking only of the 
man, he was merely acquiescent, uttering his “Ya, 
Ya,” irresponsively over his beer; but when I told him 
of the woman and children, he was on his feet in an in- 
stant — “Tamming te strikers and all teir vorks.” He 
seized his hat and big stick, and pouring out gutturals 
so fast that I could not pretend to follow him, ordered 
me to show him the place. As he strode through the 
streets, I could scarcely keep up with him. His stick 
rang on the frozen pavement like a challenge to battle. 
And when he reached the house he was immense. He 
was suddenly transformed. No mother could have 
been tenderer, no father more protecting. He gathered 
up the children in his great arms, and petted and soothed 
them; his tone, a little while before so ferocious, now as 
soft and gentle as the low velvet bass of his great drum. 
I always think of the Good Shepherd now as something 
like him that evening; rugged as a rock, gentle as a 
515 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

zephyr. He would have taken them all to his house and 
have adopted them if the woman would have let him. 
His heart was bigger than his house. He seemed to 
have filled all the place; to have made it a fortress. 

The strike had cast its black cloud over all the sec- 
tion, and not all of its victims were murdered by the 
mob. 

I fell in with the man who had spoken to me so 
cheerily one morning of the sun’s shining for him. He 
looked haggard and ill and despairing. He was out of 
work and could find none. In our talk he did not 
justify the strike; but he bowed to it with resignation 
as a stricken Orestes might have bowed to the blows of 
Fate. His spirit was not then broken — it was only 
embittered. His furniture which was so nearly paid 
for had gone to the loan sharks; his house of which he 
boasted had reverted to the Building Company. He 
looked fully twenty years older than when I had seen 
him last. I offered him a small sum which he took 
gratefully. It was the first money he had had in weeks, 
he said, and the stores had stopped his credits. A few 
weeks later I saw him staggering along the street, his 
heart-eating sorrow drowned for an hour in the only 
nepenthe such poverty knows, 


516 


XXXVII 


WOLFFERT’S NEIGHBORS 

I had not been to visit Wolffert and, indeed, had but 
i hazy idea of where he lived, knowing only that he had 
i room in the house of some Jew in the Jewish quarter. 
Hitherto our meetings had taken place either in John 
Marvel’s narrow little quarters or in mine at the old 
Drummer’s. But having learned from John that he 
vas ill, I got the address from him, and one afternoon 
vent over to see him. I found the place in a region 
nore squalid than that in which John Marvel and I had 
>ur habitation and as foreign as if it had been in Judea 
>r in a Black Sea province. In fact, it must have ex- 
hibited a mixture of both regions. The shops were 
mall and some of them gay, but the gayest was as 
nean as the most sombre. The signs and notices were 
ill in Yiddish or Russian, the former predominating, 
md as I passed through the ill-paved, ill-smelling, reek- 
ng streets I could scarcely retain my conviction that I 
vas still in an American city. It was about the hour 
hat the manufactories of clothing, etc., closed and the 
itreet through which I walked was filled with a moving 
nass of dark humanity that rolled through it like a dark 
and turgid flood. For blocks they filled the sidewalk, 
noving slowly on, and as I mingled in the mass, and 
517 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

caught low, guttural, unknown sounds, and not a word 
of English all the while, I became suddenly aware of a 
strange alien feeling of uncertainty and almost of op- 
pression. Far as eye could see I could not descry one 
Saxon countenance or even one Teuton. They were 
all dark, sallow, dingy, and sombre. Now and then a 
woman’s hat appeared in the level moving surge of 
round black hats, giving the impression of a bubble 
floating on a deep, slow current to melt into the flood. 
Could this, I reflected sombrely, be the element we are 
importing? and what effect would the strange con- 
fluence have on the current of our life in the future? 
No wonder we were in the throes of a strike vast enough 
to cause anxiety! 

I was still under the dominion of this reflection when 
I reached the street in which Wolffert had his home, and, 
after some difficulty, discovered the house in which he 
had his abode. 

The street was filled with wretched little shops, some 
more wretched than others, all stuck together in a 
curious jumble of tawdry finery and rusty necessities. 
Among them were many shops where second-hand 
clothing was exhibited, or, from appearances, clothing 
for which that term was a flattering euphuism. I 
stopped at one where second-hand shoes were hung 
out, and, opening the door to ask the way, faced a stout, 
shapeless woman with a leathery skin and a hooked 
nose, above which a pair of inquisitive black eyes rested 
on me, roving alternately from my feet to my face, with 
an expression of mingled curiosity, alarm, and hostility. 
518 


WOLFFERTS NEIGHBORS 

I asked her if she could tell me where the number I 
wanted was, and as my inquiry caused not the least 
change of expression, I took out my card and wrote the 
number down. She gazed at it in puzzled silence, and 
then with a little lighting of her dark face, muttered a 
few unintelligible words and bustled back to where a 
curtain hung across the narrow shop, and lifting one 
corner of it gave a call which I made out to be some- 
thing like “ Jacob.” The next moment a small, keen- 
looking boy made his way from behind the curtain and 
gazed at me. A few words passed between the two, in 
a tongue unknown to me, and then the boy, laying down 
a book that he carried in his hand, came forward and 
asked me in perfectly good English, “What is it you 
want?” 

“ I want to know where number 5260J Street is. 

I have that address, but cannot find the number.” 

“ I’ll show you.” His eyes too were on my shoes. “ The 
numbers of the streets were all taken down last year, and 
have not been put back yet. That is where Mr. 
Wolffert lives. Do you know him ? ” 

“Yes, I am going to see him.” 

He turned and said something rapidly to his mother, 
in which the only word I recognized was Wolffert’s 
name. The effect was instantaneous. The expression 
of vague anxiety died out of the woman’s face and she 
came forward jabbering some sort of jargon and show- 
ing a set of yellow, scattering teeth. 

“I’ll show you where he lives. You come with me,” 
said Jacob. “She thought you were an agent.” He 
519 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

suddenly showed a much better set of teeth than his 
mother could display — “She don’t speak English, you 
see.” He had laid down his book on the counter and 
he now put on his cap. As he passed out of the door 
he paused and fastened his eyes on my feet. “You 
don’t want a pair of shoes? We have all sorts — 
some as good as new. You can’t tell. Half the price, 
too.” 

I declined the proffered bargain, and we walked up 
the street, Jacob discoursing volubly of many things, to 
show his superior intelligence. 

“ What was your book ? ” I inquired. 

“U. S. History. I’m in the sixth grade.” 

“So? I should think you are rather small to be so 
high ? ” My ideas of grades were rather hazy, having 
been derived from “Tom Brown at Rugby ” and such 
like encyclopaedias. 

“Pah! I stand next to head,” he cried contempt- 
uously. 

“You do! Who stands head?” 

“Iky Walthiemer — he’s fourteen and I ain’t but 
twelve. Then there is a fellow named Johnson — 
Jimmy Johnson. But he ain’t nothin’!” 

“He isn’t? What’s the matter with him?” 

“He ain’t got no eye on him — he don’t never joe 
nothin’.” 

“You mean he’s dull?” 

“Sure! Just mem’ry, that’s all. He’s dull. We 
beat ’em all.” 

“Who are ‘we’?” 


520 


WOLFFERTS NEIGHBORS 


“We Jews.” 

“So ” 

“Well, here we are. I’ll run up and show you the 
door” — as we stopped at a little butcher shop beside 
which was a door that evidently led up a stair to the 
upper story. 

“All right. You know Mr. Wolffert ? ” 

“Sure! We all know him. He’s a Jew, too.” 

“Sure!” I tried to imitate his tone, for it was not 
an accent only. 

He ran up the stair and on up a second flight and 
back along a dark, narrow little passage, where he 
tapped on a door, and, without waiting, walked in. 

“Here’s a man to see you.” 

“ A gentleman, you mean,” I said dryly, and followed 
him, for I have a particular aversion to being referred 
to to my face as a mere man. It is not a question of 
natural history, but of manners. 

“Well, Jacob,” said Wolffert when he had greeted 
me, “have you got to the top yet?” 

“Will be next week,” said Jacob confidently. 

I found Wolffert sitting up in a chair, but looking 
wretchedly ill. He, however, declared himself much 
better. I learned afterward — though not from him — 
that he had caught some disease while investigating 
some wretched kennels known as “lodging houses,” 
where colonies of Jews were packed like herrings in a 
barrel; and for which a larger percentage on the value 
was charged as rental than for the best dwellings in the 
city. His own little room was small and mean enough, 
521 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

but it was comfortably if plainly furnished, and there 
were books about, which always give a homelike air, 
and on a little table a large bunch of violets which in- 
stantly caught my eye. By some inexplicable sixth 
sense I divined that they had come from Eleanor Leigh; 
but I tried to be decent enough not to be jealous; and 
Wolffert’s manifest pleasure at seeing me made me feel 
humble. 

We had fallen to talking of his work when I said, 
“ Wolff ert, why do you live in this horrible quarter? 
No wonder you get ill. Why don’t you get a room in a 
more decent part of the town — near where John Marvel 
lives, for instance?” 

Wolffert smiled. 

“Why? — what is the matter with this?” 

“Oh! Why, it is dreadful. Why, it’s the dirtiest, 
meanest, lowest quarter of the city! I never saw such 
a place. It’s full of stinking” — I was going to say 
“Jews”; but reflected in time to substitute “holes.” 

Wolffert, I saw, supplied the omitted objection. 

“Do you imagine I would live among the rich?” he 
demanded; “I thought you knew me better. I don’t 
want to be fattened in the dark like a Strasbourg goose 
for my liver to make food acceptable to their jaded 
appetites. Better be a pig at once.” 

“No, but there are other places than this — and I 
should think your soul would revolt at this — ” I 
swung my arm in a half circle. 

“Are they not my brethren?” he said, half smiling. 

“Well, admit that they are — ” (And I knew all 
522 


WOLFFERT’S NEIGHBORS 


along that this was the reason.) “ There are other 
grades — brethren of nearer degree.” 

“None,” he ejaculated. “‘I dwell among my own 
people’ — I must live among them to understand them.” 

“I should think them rather easy to understand.” 

“I mean to be in sympathy with them,” he said 
gently. “Besides, I am trying to teach them two or 
three things.” 

“What?” For I confess that my soul had revolted 
at his surroundings. That surging, foreign-born, for- 
eign-looking, foreign-spoken multitude who had filled 
the street as I came along through the vile reek of 
“Little Russia,” as it was called, had smothered my 
charitable feelings. 

“Well, for one thing, to learn the use of freedom — 
for another, to learn the proper method and function of 
organization.” 

“They certainly appear to me to have the latter al- 
ready — simply by being what they are,” I said lightly. 

“I mean of business organization,” Wolff ert ex- 
plained. “I want to break up the sweat shop and the 
sweat system. We are already making some headway, 
and have thousands in various kinds of organized 
business which are quite successful.” 

“ I should not think they would need your assistance 
— from what I saw. They appear to me to have an 
instinct.” 

“They have,” said Wolffert, “but we are teaching 
them how to apply it. The difficulty is their ignorance 
and prejudice. You think that they hold you in some 
523 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

distrust and dislike, possibly?” As his tone implied 
a question, I nodded. 

“Well, that is nothing to the way in which they re- 
gard me. You they distrust as a gentile, but me they 
detest as a renegade.” 

“Well, I must say that I think you deserve what you 
get for bringing in such a mass of ignorance. Now, 
you are an American, and a patriotic one. How do you 
reconcile it with your patriotism to introduce into the 
body politic such an element of ignorance, superstition, 
and unrest?” 

“Why,” said Wolff ert, “you don’t know our people. 
The Jew is often an element of ignorance and super- 
stition, though he is not alone in this, but he is never 
an element of unrest — when he is justly treated,” he 
added after a pause. “But, whatever these people are 
in this generation, the next generation — the children of 
this generation — will be useful American citizens. All 
they require is a chance. Why, the children of these 
Russian Jews, baited from their own country, are win- 
ning all the prizes in the schools,” he added, his pale 
face flushing faintly. “That lad who showed you in is 
the son of parents who sell second-hand shoes in the 
next street and cannot speak a word of English, and 
yet he stands at the head of his class.” 

“No, second!” I said. 

“ How do you know ? ” 

“He told me.” 

“The little rascal! See how proud he is of it,” said 
Wolff ert triumphantly. 


524 


WOLFFERTS NEIGHBORS 


“He tried to sell me a pair of shoes.” 

Wolffert chuckled. “Did he?” Then he sobered, 
catching my thought. “That is the most important 
thing for him at present, but wait. Let this develop.” 
He tapped his forehead. “He may give you laws 
equal to Kepler’s or a new philosophy like Bacon’s. He 
may solve aerial navigation — or revolutionize thought in 
any direction — who knows!” 

His face had lighted up as he proceeded, and he was 
leaning forward in his chair, his eyes glowing. 

“I know,” I said, teasingly. “He’ll sell shoes — 
second-hand ones polished up for new.” 

I was laughing, but Wolffert did not appreciate my 
joke. He flushed slightly. 

“That’s your gentile ignorance, my friend. That’s 
the reason your people are so dense — they never learn — 
they keep repeating the same thing. No wonder we 
discover new worlds for you to claim ! ” 

“What new worlds have you discovered?” 

“Well, first, Literature, next commerce. What is 
your oldest boasted scripture?” 

“I thought you were talking of material worlds!” 

“ We helped about that, too — did our full part. You 
think Queen Isabella pawned her jewels to send Christo- 
bal Colon to discover America — don’t you?” 

I nodded. 

“Well, the man who put up the money for that little 
expedition was a Jew — ‘Arcangel, the Treasurer.’ 
You never heard of him ! ” 


“Never.” 


525 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“He did it all the same. If you would read some- 
thing else beside your narrow English writings, Glave, 
you would learn something of the true history of civili- 
zation. ” Now and then Wolffert’s arrogance, like 
Antipater’s, showed through the rents in his raiment. 

“What for instance ? since you appear to know it all.” 

“Well, almost any other history or philosophy. 
Read the work of the thinkers old and new — and see how 
much deeper life is than the shallow thing called by 
that divine name by the butterflies and insects and rep- 
tiles who flaunt their gauzy vans in our faces or fasten 
their brazen claws in our vitals. Meantime, you might 
read my book,” he said with a smile, “when it comes 
out.” 

“Well, tell me about it meantime and save me the 
trouble. I sometimes prefer my friends to their books.” 

“You were always lazy,” he said smiling. But he 
began to talk, laying down his philosophy of life, 
which was simple enough, though I could not follow 
him very far. I had been trained in too strict a school 
to accept doctrines so radical. And but that I saw him 
and John Marvel and Eleanor Leigh acting on them I 
should have esteemed them absolutely utopian. As it 
was, I wondered how far Eleanor Leigh had inspired 
his book. 


526 


XXXVIII 


WOLFFERT’S PHILOSOPHY 
(which may be skipped by the reader) 

As Wolffert warmed up to his theme, his face bright- 
ened and his deep eyes glowed. 

“The trouble with our people — our country — the 
world — is that our whole system — social — commercial — 
political — every activity is based on greed, mere, sheer 
greed. State and Church act on it — live by it. The 
success of the Jew which has brought on him so much 
suffering through the ages has revenged itself by stamp- 
ing on your life the very evil with which you charge him 
— love of money. What ideals have we? None but 
money. We call it wealth. We have debased the 
name, and its debasement shows the debasement of the 
race. Once it meant weal, now mere riches, though 
employed basely, the very enemy and assassin of weal. 
The covetousness, whose reprobation in the last of the 
commandments was intended as a compendium to em- 
brace the whole, has honeycombed our whole life, 
public and private. The amassing of riches, not for 
use only, for display — vulgar beyond belief — the squan- 
dering of riches, not for good, but for evil, to gratify 
jaded appetites which never at their freshest craved 
anything but evil or folly, marks the lowest level of the 
527 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

shopkeeping intellect. The Argands and the Canters 
are the aristocrats of the community, and the Capons 
are the fit priests for such people. ,, 

He turned away in disgust — but I prodded him. 

“What is your remedy? You criticise fiercely! but 
give no light. You are simply destructive.” 

“The remedy is more difficult to give,” he said 
gravely; “because the evil has been going on so long 
that it has become deep-rooted. It has sunk its roots 
into, not only the core of our life, but our character. It 
will take long to eradicate it. But one economic evil 
might be, and eventually must be changed, unless we 
wish to go down into the abyss of universal corruption 
and destruction.” 

“You mean ?” 

“Capitalism — the idea that because a man is acci- 
dentally able to acquire through adventitious and often 
corrupt means vast riches which really are not made by 
himself, but by means of others under conditions and 
laws which he did not create, he may call them his 
own; use them in ways manifestly detrimental to the 
public good and, indeed, often in notorious destructive- 
ness of it, and be protected in doing so by those laws.” 

“ ‘ Accidentally ’ — and ‘ adventitious means * ! That 
does not happen so often. It may happen by finding 
a gold mine — once in ten thousand times — or by corner- 
ing some commodity on the stock or Produce Exchange 
once in one hundred thousand times, but even then a 
man must have intellect — force — courage — resource- 
fulness — wonderful powers of organization.” 

528 


WOLFFERTS PHILOSOPHY 

''So has the burglar and highwayman,” he inter- 
rupted. 

“But they are criminals — they break the law.” 

“What law? | Why law more than these others? Is 
not the fundamental law, not to do evil to others ? ” 

“The law established by society for its protection.” 

“Who made those laws?” 

“The people — through their representatives,” I 
added hastily, as I saw him preparing to combat it. 

“The people, indeed! precious little part they have 
had in the making of the laws. Those laws were made, 
not by the people — who had no voice in their making, 
but by a small class — originally the Chief — the Em- 
peror — the King — the Barons — the rich Burghers — the 
people had no part nor voice.” 

“They received the benefit of them.” 

“Only the crumbs which fell from their masters* 
tables. They got the gibbet, the dungeon, the rack, 
and the stick.” 

“ Wolff ert, you would destroy all property rights.” 

“My dear fellow, what nonsense you talk. I am 
only for changing the law to secure property rights for 
all, instead of for a class, the necessity for which no 
longer exists, if it ever did exist.” 

“Your own law-giver recognized it and inculcated it.” 
I thought this a good thrust. He waved it aside. 

“That was for a primitive people in a primitive age, 
as your laws were for your people in their primitive 
age. But do you suppose that Moses would make no 
modification now?” 


529 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I have no idea that he would. For I believe they 
were divine.” 

“Surely — Moses acted under the guidance of the great 
Jehovah, whose law is justice and equity and righteous- 
ness. The laws he gave were to inculcate this, and 
they served their purpose when Israel served God. 
But now when He is mocked, the letter of the law is 
made an excuse and is given as the command to work 
injustice and inequity and unrighteousness. Surely 
they should be, at least, interpreted in the spirit in 
which they were given. You claim to be a Christian ?” 

“A very poor one.” 

“In name, at least, you claim that there has been a 
new dispensation ? ” 

“Yes — an amplification — a development and evo- 
lution.” 

“Precisely. In place of an 'eye for an eye, and a 
tooth for a tooth — the other cheek turned — to do to 
others as you would have them do to you!’ ” 

“That is the ideal. I have not yet reached that de- 
gree of ” I paused for the word. 

“I, too, acknowledge that evolution, that ideal. 
Why should we not act on it ?” 

“Because of human nature. We have not yet 
reached the stage when it can be practically applied.” 

“ But human nature while it does not change basic- 
ally may be regulated, developed, uplifted, and this 
teaching is based on this principle. It has not yet 
borne much apparent fruit, it is true; but it is sound, 
nevertheless. We both in our better moments, at 
530 


WOLFFERT’S PHILOSOPHY 


least, feel it to be sound, and there has been a little, 
however little uplift, and however hard to maintain. 

“You believe in the development of man; but you 
look only to his material development. I look for his 
complete development, material and spiritual. As he 
has advanced through the countless ages since God 
breathed into him the breath of Life, and by leading 
him along the lines of physical development to a station 
in creation where the physical evolution gave place to 
the ever-growing psychical development; so I believe 
he is destined to continue this psychical or spiritual 
growth, increasing its power as the ages pass and 
mounting higher and higher in spiritual knowledge, 
until he shall attain a degree of perfection that we only 
think of now as a part of the divine. We see the poet 
and the saint living to-day in an atmosphere wholly dis- 
tinct from the gross materialism of common humanity. 
We see laws being enacted and principles evolved which 
make for the improvement of the human race. We see 
the gradual uplifting and improvement of the race. 
War is being diminished; its horrors lessened; food is 
becoming more diffused ; civilization — material civiliza- 
tion — is being extended; and the universal, fundamental 
rights are being a little more recognized, however dimly. 
This means growth — the gradual uplifting of mankind, 
the diffusion of knowledge, as well as of food — the 
growth of intellectuality. And as this comes, think 
you that man will not rise higher? A great reservoir 
is being tapped and from it will flow, in the future, 
rich streams to fertilize the whole world of humanity. 
531 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Aspirations will leap higher and higher, and the whole 
race in time will receive new light, new power, new 
environments, with an ever- widening horizon, and a 
vast infinitude of spiritual truth as the field for the 
soul's exercise.” 

“It is a dream,” I said, impressed by his burning 
eyes, his glowing face, as he drifted on almost in a 
rhapsody. 

“Yes — a dream; but it might come true if all — if 
you and all like you — I mean all educated and trained 
people, would unite to bring it about. Your leader 
preached it, you profess the principles now, but do not 
practise them. The State has been against it — the 
Church equally. It is full of sham.” 

“It was Jerusalem that stoned the prophets,” I in- 
terrupted. He swept on with a gesture. 

“Yes, yes — I know — I am not speaking now as a 
sectarian.” 

“ But, at least, as a Jew,” I said, laughing. 

“Yes, perhaps. I hardly know. I know about 
Hannan the High Priest. He tried to stand in with 
Pilate. He thought he was doing his duty when he was 
only fighting for his caste. But what an Iliad of woes 
he brought on his people — through the ages. But now 
they know, they profess, and yet stone the prophets. 
Your church, founded to fight riches and selfishness 
and formalism, is the greatest exploiter of all that the 
world knows. Two generations sanctify the wealth 
gotten by the foulest means. The robber, the mur- 
derer, the destroyer of homes are all accepted, and 
532 


WOLFFERTS PHILOSOPHY 


if one protests he is stoned to-day as if he were a 
blasphemer of the law. If the Master to whom your 
churches are erected should come to-day and preach the 
doctrines he preached in Judea nineteen hundred years 
ago, he would be cast out here precisely as he was cast 
out there.” He spoke almost fiercely. 

“Yet his teachings,” he added, “are nearer those of 
the people I represent than of those who assail them. 
Why should we not act on it? Possibly, some others 
might see our good works, and in any event we shall 
have done our part. John Marvel does.” 

“ I know he does, but he is a better Christian than I 
am, and so are you.” 

“I am not a Christian at all. I am only a Jew.” 

“Will you say that His teachings have had no part 
in forming your character and life ? ” 

“ Not my character. My father taught me before I was 
able to read. Possibly I have extended his teachings!” 

“ Have His teachings had no part in deciding you as 
to your work ? ” 

“His teachings? John Marvel’s exposition of them 
in his life bore a part and, thus, perhaps ” 

“That is it.” 

“Why should I not participate in the benefit of the 
wisdom of a Jewish rabbi ?” said Wolffert, scornfully. 
“Did Jesus utter his divine philosophy only for you 
who were then savages in Northern Europe or half- 
civilized people in Greece, Italy, and Spain? Your 
claim that he did so simply evinces the incurable in- 
sularity of your people.” 


533 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“ What is your remedy ? Socialism ? ” 

“ Call it what you will. That is a name which some 
prefer and some detest. The fact is, that the profit 
system on which all Modern Capitalism rests is radi- 
cally and fundamentally vicious and wrong. Men 
work and strive, not to produce for use, for service, but 
for profit. Profit becomes the aim of human endeavor 
— nothing higher or better — Competition.” 

“ ‘Competition/ ” I quoted, “ ‘is the soul of trade/ ” 

“ Competition/’ he said, “may be the soul of trade, 
but that trade is the trade in men’s souls, as well as 
bodies — in the universal soul of the people. It sets man 
against man, and brother against brother — Cain 
against Abel — and is branded with the curse of Cain/* 

“What would you substitute for it?” I demanded. 

“The remedy is always a problem. I should try co- 
operation — in this age.” 

“ Co-operation I It has been proved an absolute 
failure. It makes the industrious and the thrifty the 
slave of the idle and spendthrift. Men would not 
work.” 

“An idle and time-worn fallacy. The ambitious do 
not work for gold, the high-minded do not — John 
Marvel does not — Miss Leigh does not. The poor do 
not work for wealth, only for bread, for a crust, with 
starvation ever grinning at them beside their door which 
cannot shut out its grisly face. Look at your poor 
client McNeil. Did he work to accumulate gold ? He 
worked to feed his starving children.” 

“ But, would they work — this great class ? ” 

534 


WOLFFERT’S PHILOSOPHY 


" Yes, they would have to work, all who are capable of 
it, but for higher rewards. We would make all who are 
capable, work. We would give the rewards to those 
who produce, to all who produce by intellect or labor. 
We would do away with those who live on the producers 
— the leeches who suck the life-blood. Work, intel- 
lectual or physical, should be the law of society.” 

“They would not work,” I insisted. 

“Why do you go on drivelling that like a morning 
paper. Why would they not work! Man is the most 
industrious animal on earth. Look at these vast piles 
of useless buildings, look at the great edifices and works 
of antiquity. Work is the law of his awakened intel- 
lect. There would still be ambition, emulation, a 
higher and nobler ambition for something better than 
the base reward they strive and rob and trample each 
other in the mire for now. Men would then work for 
art, the old mechanic-arts would revive in greater 
beauty and perfection than ever before. New and 
loftier ideals would be set up. There would be more, 
vastly more men who would have those ideals. What 
does the worker now know of ideals ? He is reduced to 
a machine, and a very poor machine at that. He does 
not know where his work goes, or have an interest in it. 
Give him that. Give his fellows that. It will uplift 
him, uplift his class, create a great reservoir from which 
to draw a better class. The trouble with you, my dear 
friend,” said Wolffert, “is that you are assuming all the 
time that your law is a fixed law, your condition of so- 
ciety a fixed condition. They are not: There are few 
535 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 


things fixed in the world. The universal law is change 
— growth or decay. Of all the constellations and 
stars, the Pole star alone is fixed, and that simply ap- 
pears so. It really moves like the rest, only in a vaster 
orbit with other stars moving about it.” 

I smiled, partly at his grandiose imagery and partly 
at his earnestness. 

“You smile, but it is true. There are few funda- 
mental laws. The survival of the fittest is one of them 
in its larger sense. It is that under which my people 
have survived.” 

“And that all men are by nature entitled to life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” 

“Not at all, or, at least, only in the larger sense. If 
they were entitled to life, neither nature nor the law 
would deprive them of it — if to liberty, neither could 
interfere with it — if to the pursuit of happiness, we 
should have to reconstruct their minds.” 

“Then, in Heaven’s name, what are they entitled to ?” 
I exclaimed. 

“First, under certain conditions, to the best fruits of 
properly organized society; to light — enlightenment — 
then to opportunity to have an equal chance for what 
they are willing to work for.” 

“Among other things, to work?” I hazarded, feeling 
that he had delivered himself into my hands. “Every 
man has a right to labor at whatever work and for what- 
ever prices he pleases,” I said; “that you will admit is 
fundamental ?” 

“Provided you allow me to define what you mean — 

536 


WOLFFERTS PHILOSOPHY 


provided it does not injure his neighbor. You, as a 
lawyer, quote your Sic utere tuo ut non” 

“If the laborer and his employer contract, no one 
else has a right to interfere. ,, 

“Not the public — if they are injured by it?” 

“Except by law.” 

“Who make the laws? The people in theory now, 
and some day they will do it in fact. As the spirit of 
the time changes, the interpretation of the law will 
change, and the spirit is changing all the time.” 

“Not in this particular.” 

“Yes, in all respects. Men are becoming more en- 
lightened. The veil has been torn away and the light 
has been let in. As soon as education came the step 
was taken. We are in a new era already, and the truth 
is, you and your like do not see it.” 

“What sort of era ? How is it new ? ” 

“ An era of enlightenment. Men have been informed ; 
they know their power; ‘the tree of knowledge has 
been plucked/ ” 

“They don’t appear to do much with the knowledge.” 

“You think not? It is true that they have not yet 
learned to apply the knowledge fully, but they are 
learning. See how Democracy has ripened over the 
earth, overthrowing tyranny and opening the door of 
opportunity for all mankind — how the principles of 
Socialism have spread within the last generation, in 
Germany, in England, now in America and Russia. 
Why, it is now an active, practical force.” 

“Oh! not much,” I insisted. 

537 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“A great deal, taking into account the opposition to 
it. It is contrary, remember, to the established usage 
and belief of thousands of years. It proposes to sup- 
plant what you have been trained to consider the 
foundation of your life, of society, of order, and you have 
been trained to believe that your most precious rights 
are bound up with that system. Every force of modern 
life is arrayed against it, yet it advances steadily; be- 
cause, under your system, lies the fundamental error 
and sin which enables one man to hold another down 
and live off of him. You do not see that a new era is 
dawning, that man is developing, society passing into a 
new phase. Democracy has come to stay; because 
it is informed. More and more men are thinking, more 
and more men are learning to think.” 

“But they will not be able to upset the established 
order.” 

“There is no established order. It is always upset in 
time, either for good or ill. It never abides, for change 
is the law.” 

“Generally for ill. Content is lost.” 

“Generally for good,” flashed Wolff ert. “The con- 
tent you speak of is slavery — stagnation and death. 
When a man ceases to move, to change consciously, 
he changes most, he dies. That is the law that for 
the universal good underlies all growth. You cannot 
alter it.” 

He ceased speaking and I took my leave, feeling that 
somehow he had grown away from me. 


538 


XXXIX 


THE CONFLICT 

Wolff ert’s book was never finished. When he got 
well, it was laid aside for more imperative work. The 
misery in the city had increased till it threatened the 
overthrow of everything. It was necessary to do his 
part to ameliorate the wretchedness; for his word was 
a charm in the foreign district where disturbance was 
most to be feared. He was the most talked of man in 
the city. He worked night and day. 

For a little time it looked as though the efforts of the 
peace-makers, among whom were conspicuous in the 
poor section of the town John Marvel and Wolff ert, to 
bring about a better feeling and condition were going 
to be successful. The men began to return to work. 
The cars were once more being operated, though under 
heavy police protection, Collis McSheen having had 
it made clear to him by his former friends like Canter 
and others that he must act oi; take the consequences. 

One evening not long afterward, under prompting of 
an impulse to go and see how my poor woman and little 
Janet were coming on, and possibly not without some 
thought of Eleanor Leigh, who had hallowed her door- 
step the last time I was there, I walked over to that part 
of the town. I took Dix along, or he took himself, for 
539 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

he was my inseparable companion these days. Eleanor 
Leigh had been there, but she had gone to the old Drum- 
mer’s to see Elsa, who was ill, and had taken Janet with 
her. The mother said the child was afraid to go out on 
the street now, and Miss Eleanor thought it would do 
her good. The poor woman’s pitiful face haunted me 
as I turned down the street. Though the men were 
returning to work, the effect of the strike was still ap- 
parent all through this section of the town. The streets 
were full of idlers, especially about the bar-rooms; and 
their surly looks and glum air testified to the general 
feeling. 

Of all the gatherings of men that I have ever seen the 
most painful is that of men on a strike. They are a 
forlorn hope. In most assemblies there is enthusiasm, 
spirit, resolve: something that beams forth with hope 
and sustains. Most of these exist in striking men; yet 
Hope is absent. In other assemblages her radiant 
wings light up their faces; in strikes, it seems to me that 
the sombre shadow of care is always present. In this 
strike Wolffert had been one of the most interested 
observers. While he thought it unwise to strike, he 
advocated the men’s right to strike and to picket, but 
not to employ violence. It was passive resistance that 
he preached, and he deplored the death of McNeil as 
much as I did, or John Marvel. Only he charged it 
to McSheen and Wringman and even more to the 
hypocrisy of a society which tolerated their operations. 

This strike had succeeded to the extent of causing 
great loss to and, rumor said, of financially embarrass- 
540 


THE CONFLICT 


ing Mr. Leigh; but had failed so far as the men were 
concerned, and it was known that it had failed. Its 
only fruit for the working people was misery. The 
only persons who had profited by it were men like Mc- 
Sheen and Wringman. 

I held strong opinions about the rights of men in the 
abstract; under the influence of John Marvel's and 
Wolffert’s unselfish lives, and the yet more potent 
influence of Eleanor Leigh, I had come to realize the 
beauty of self-sacrifice, even if I had not yet risen to the 
loftiness of its practice; but the difficulties which I saw 
in the application of our theories and my experience that 
night at the meeting, followed by the death of McNeil, 
had divided me from my old associates like Wolffert. 
I could not but see that out of the movements instituted, 
as Wolffert believed, for the general good of the working 
classes, the real workingmen were become mere tools, 
and those who were glib of tongue, forward in speech, 
and selfish and shrewd in method, like McSheen and 
Wringman, used them and profited by them remorse- 
lessly, while the rest of the community were ground 
between the upper and the nether millstones. Even 
Wolffert, with his pure motives, had proved but an 
instrument in their hands to further their designs. 
Their influence was still at work, and under orders from 
these battening politicians many poor men with families 
still stood idle, with aims often as unselfish and as lofty 
as ever actuated patriots or martyrs, enduring hardship 
and privation with the truest and most heroic courage; 
whilst their leaders, like Wringman, who had been idle 
541 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

agitators during the time of prosperity, now rose on the 
crest of the commotion they had created, and blos- 
somed into importance. The Nile courses through 
upper Egypt bearing its flood to enrich the lower lands; 
but the desert creeps and hangs its parched lips over 
the very brink. 

I determined to go and inquire after Elsa myself. So, 
with Dix at my heel, I passed through the foreign streets, 
crowded with the same dark-hued elements I had ob- 
served before, only now lowering and threatening as 
a cloud about to break, and walked over toward the 
little street in which the Loewens lived, and presently I 
fell in with Wolffert, who, like myself, appeared to have 
business in that direction. Under the circumstances, 
I should have been glad to escape from him; but as he 
joined me I could not well do so, and we walked along 
together. He looked worn and appeared to be rather 
gloomy, which I set down to his disappointment at the 
turn affairs connected with the strike had taken, for I 
learned from him that, under the influence of Wringman, 
there was danger of a renewal of hostilities; that his 
efforts at mediation had failed, and he had at a meeting 
which he had attended, where he had advocated con- 
ciliatory measures, been hooted down. There was 
danger, he said, of the whole trouble breaking out again, 
and if so, the sympathy of the public would now be on 
the other side. Thinking more of the girl I was in pur- 
suit of than of anything else, and having in mind the 
announcement of Mr. Leigh’s losses and reported em- 
barrassment, I expressed myself hotly. If they struck 
542 


THE CONFLICT 


again they deserved all they got — they deserved to fail 
for following such leaders as Wringman and refusing 
to listen to their friends. 

“Oh, no, they are just ignorant, that is all — they 
don’t know. Give them time — give them time.” 

“Well, I am tired of it all.” 

“Tired! Oh! don’t get tired. That’s not the 
way to work. Stand fast. Go and see John Marvel 
and get new inspiration from him. See how he 
works.” 

“Wolffert, I am in love,” I said, suddenly. He 
smiled — as I remembered afterward, sadly. 

“Yes, you are.” There was that in his tone which 
rather miffed me. I thought he was in love, too; but 
not, like myself, desperately. 

“You are not — and you don’t know what it is. So, 
it is easy for you.” 

He turned on me almost savagely, with a flame in his 
eyes. 

“Not — ! I not! You don’t dream what it is to be 
in love. You cannot. You are incapable — incapable!” 
He clutched at his heart. The whole truth swept over 
me like a flood. 

“Wolffert! Why — ? Why have you never — ?” I 
could not go on. But he understood me. 

“Because I am a Jew!” His eyes burned with deep 
fires. 

“A Jew! Well, suppose you are. She is not one to 
allow that ” 

He wheeled on me. 


543 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Do you think — ? Do you imagine I mean — ? I 
would not allow myself — I could never — never allow 
myself — It is impossible — for me.” 

I gazed on him with amazement. He was trans- 
formed. The pride of race, the agony and subdued 
fury of centuries, flamed in him. I saw for the first 
time the spirit of the chosen people: Israel in bondage, 
yet arisen, with power to call down thunders from 
Heaven. I stood abashed — abashed at my selfish 
blindness through all my association with him. How 
often I had heedlessly driven the iron into his soul. 
With my arm over his shoulder I stammered something 
of my remorse, and he suddenly seized my hand and 
wrung it in speechless friendship. 

As we turned into a street not far from the Loewens’, 
we found ahead of us quite a gathering, and it was in- 
creasing momentarily. Blue-coated police, grim-look- 
ing or anxious, were standing about in squads, and sur- 
lier-looking men were assembling at the corners. It 
was a strike. I was surprised. I even doubted if it 
could be that. But my doubt was soon dispelled. At 
that moment a car came around a corner a few blocks 
away and turned into the street toward us. There was 
a movement in a group near me; a shout went up from 
one of them and in a second the street was pandemo- 
nium. That dark throng through which we had passed 
poured in like a torrent. A bomb exploded a half 
block away, throwing up dirt and stones. 

With a cry, “God of Israel!” Wolffert sprang for- 
ward; but I lost him in the throng. I found myself 
544 


THE CONFLICT 


borne toward the car like a chip on a fierce flood. The 
next instant I was a part of the current, and was strug- 
gling like a demon. On the platform were a brawny 
driver and two policemen. The motorman I recog- 
nized as Otto. As I was borne near the car, I saw that 
in it, among others, were an old man, a woman, and a 
child, and as I reached the car I recognized — I know 
not how — all three. They were the old Drummer, 
Eleanor Leigh, and the little girl, Janet McNeil. I 
thought I caught the eye of the young lady, but it may 
have been fancy; for the air was full of missiles, the 
glass was crashing and tingling; the sound of the mob 
was deafening. At any rate I saw her plainly. She 
had gathered up the scared child in her arms, and with 
white face, but blazing eyes, was shielding her from the 
flying stones and glass. 

I was one of the first men on the car, and made my 
way into it, throwing men right and left as I entered it. 
I shall never forget the look that came into her eyes as 
she saw me. She rose with a cry and, stretching out 
her hands, pushed the child into my arms with a single 
word: “Save her. ,, It was like an elixir; it gave me 
ten times the strength I had before. The car was 
blocked, and we descended from it — I in front protect- 
ing her — and fought our way through the mob to the 
outskirts, the old Drummer, a squad of policemen, and 
myself; I with the child by the hand to keep her near 
the ground and less exposed, and the old Drummer 
shielding us both and roaring like a lion. It was a 
warm ten minutes; the air was black with stones and 

545 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

missiles. The crowd seemed to have gone mad 
were like ravening wolves. The presence of a woman 
and child had no effect on them but to increase their 
fury. They were mad with the insanity of mobbism. 
But at last we got through, though I was tom and bleed- 
ing. They were after the motorman and conductor. 
The latter had escaped into a shop and the door was 
shut; but the mob was not to be balked. Doors and 
windows were smashed in like paper. The mob 
poured in and rummaged everywhere for its victim, 
up-stairs and down, like terriers in a cellar after a rat. 
Fortunately for him, he had escaped out the back way. 
They looted the shop and then turned back to search 
for another victim. As we were near old Loewen’s 
house we took the refugees there, and when they were 
in that place of safety, I returned to the scene of con- 
flict. I had caught sight of several faces in the crowd 
that roused me beyond measure, and I went back 
to fight. If I had had a pistol that day, I should cer* 
tainly have committed murder. I had seen Wringman 
covertly urging the mob on and Pushkin enjoying it. 
Just as I stepped from the car with the child, trying to 
shield her and Eleanor Leigh, and with the old Drum- 
mer bulky and raging at my side, trying to shield us all 
and sputtering oaths in two languages, my eye reached 
across the mob and I had caught sight of McSheen’s 
and Pushkin’s heads above the crowd on the far edge 
of the mob where it was safe. McSheen wore his im- 
pervious mask; the other’s face was wicked with satis- 
faction, and he was laughing. A sudden desire to kih 
546 


THE CONFLICT 


sprang into my heart. If I had not had my charges to 
guard, I should have made my way to him then. I 
came back for him now. 

When I arrived, the fight had somewhat changed. 
Shops were being looted, wagons, trucks, and every sort 
of vehicle were being turned into the street by drivers 
who sympathized with the strike, to impede the resto- 
ration of order. The police, aroused at last and in 
deadly earnest, had formed in order and, under their 
hammering, the mob was giving way. Only at one 
point they were making a stand. It was the comer 
where Pushkin had stood, and I made toward it. As 
I did so the crowd opened, and a group stamped it- 
self indelibly in my mind. In the front line of the 
mob, Wolffert, tall and flaming, hatless, and with 
flying hair, swinging arms, and wide-open mouth, 
by turns trying to pacify the wild mob, by turns cursing 
and fighting a group of policemen — who, with flying 
clubs and drawn pistols, were hammering them and 
driving them slowly — was trying to make himself 
heard. Beyond these, away at the far edge of the mob 
the face of Pushkin, his silk hat pulled over his eyes. 
As I gazed at him, he became deadly pale, and then 
turned as if to get away; but the crowd held him fast. 
I was making toward him, when a figure taller than his 
shoved in between us, pushing his way toward him. He 
was fighting for his life. His head was bare and his face 
was bleeding. His back was to me; but I recognized 
the head and broad shoulders of Otto. It was this 
sight that drove the blood from Pushkin’s face, and 
547 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

well it might; for the throng was being parted by the 
young Swede as water is parted by a strong swimmer. 
There was a pistol shot, then I saw the Swede’s arm 
lifted with the lever in his hand, and the next second 
Pushkin’s head went down. The cry that went up and 
the surging of the crowd told me what had happened, 
but I had no time to act; for at this moment I saw a 
half-dozen men in the mob fall upon Wolffert, who with 
bleeding face was still trying to hold them back, and he 
disappeared in the rush. I shouted to some officers 
by me, “They are killing a man there,” and together 
we made our way through the crowd toward the spot. 
It was as I supposed — the adventurer was down. The 
young Swede had settled his account with him. He was 
unconscious, but he was still breathing. Wolffert, too, 
was stretched on the ground, battered almost beyond 
recognition. John Marvel, his own face bruised and 
bleeding, was on his knees beside him, supporting his 
head, and the police were beating the crowd back. As 
I drew near, Wolffert half rose. “Don’t beat them; 
they don’t know.” He sank back. The brawny young 
Swede, with a pistol bullet through his clothes, was 
already on the other side of the street, making his way 
out through the crowd. Pushkin’s and Wolffert’s fall 
and the tremendous rush made by the police caused the 
mob to give way finally, and they were driven from the 
spot, leaving a half-dozen hatless and drunken leaders 
in the hands of the police. 

Pushkin was taken up and was carried to a hospital, 
and John Marvel lifted Wolffert in his arms. Just as 
548 


THE CONFLICT 


he was lifted, a stone struck me on the head, and I went 
down and knew no more. 

When I came to, I was in a hospital. John Marvel 
was sitting beside me, his placid eyes looking down into 
mine with that mingled serenity and kindness which 
gave such strength to others. I think they helped me 
to live as they had helped so many other poor sufferers 
to die. I was conscious only for a moment, and then 
went off into an illness which lasted a long time, before 
I really knew anything. But I took him with me into 
that misty border-land where I wandered so many 
weeks, before returning to life, and when I emerged 
from it again, there he sat as before, serene, confident, 
and inspiring. He wore a mourning band on his sleeve. 

“Where is Dix?” was the first thing I asked. 

“He is all right — in good hands.” 

It was a long time before I could be talked to much; 
but when I was strong enough, he told me many things 
that had taken place. The strike was broken up. Its 
end was sad enough, as the end of all strikes is. Wolf- 
fert was dead — killed in the final rush of the riot in 
which I was hurt. And so perished all his high aims 
and inefficient, unselfish methods. His father had come 
on and taken his body home: “A remarkable old man,” 
said John. “He was proud of Leo, but could not get 
over the loss of the great merchant he would have been.” 
Pushkin had recovered, and had been discharged from 
the hospital, and had just married Collis McSheen’s 
daughter. “She would have him,” said John. Wring- 
man had disappeared. On the collapse of the strike, 
549 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

it had been found that he had sold out to Coll McSheen 
and the Argand companies, and furnished them in- 
formation. He had now gone away, Marvel did not 
know where. Langton, when I saw him later, thought 
he had been afraid to stay longer where so many men 
were who had lost their places through him. 

“It is always the way — the innocent suffer, and the 
guilty escape,” I murmured. 

I felt Marvel’s hand gently placed over my lips. 

“Inscrutable; but it must be right,” he said: 

“ ‘ God moves in a mysterious way, 

His wonders to perform.’ ” 

“ I don’t believe God had anything to do with it.” I 
was bitter; for I was still thinking of Wolff ert and Push- 
kin and McSheen. 

“The doctors tell me that a hundredth part of an 
inch more, and a friend of mine would never have known 
anything again,” said Marvel, gravely, looking down 
at me with sorrowful, kind eyes. 

Under this argument ad hominem I was silent, if not 
convinced. We are always ready to think Providence 
interferes in our especial behalf. 

I started to ask after another who had been in the riot, 
but I could not frame the question. I saw that Marvel 
knew what I wished. I learned afterward that I had 
talked of her constantly during my delirium. She was 
well, he told me. She had not been hurt, nor had the 
child or old Loewen. She had left the city. Her 
father was involved now in a great lawsuit, the object 
650 


THE CONFLICT 

of which Marvel did not know, and she had gone 
away. 

“ Where has she gone?” 

He did not answer, and I took it for granted that he 
did not know. 

“If I had been you, I would have found out where 
she went to,” I said peevishly. 

He took no notice of this. He only smiled. He did 
not say so; but I thought from his manner that she had 
gone abroad. He had had a note from her saying that 
she would be away a long time, and inclosing him a 
generous contribution for his poor. 

“She is an angel,” he said. 

“Of course she is.” 

Though he spoke reverently, I was almost angry with 
him for thinking it necessary to say it at all. 

“Yes; but you do not know how good she is. None 
but God knows how good some women are.” 

One or two other pieces of news he told me. The 
old Drummer and his wife had gone off, too; but only 
on a visit to Elsa. Elsa and Otto had been married, 
and were living in another State. I saw that he still 
had something else to tell, and finally it came out. As 
soon as I was able, I must go away for a while. I needed 
change and rest, and he knew the very place for me, 
away off in the country. 

“You appear to be anxious to depopulate the city,” 
I said. He only smiled contentedly. 

“I am going to send you to the country,” he said with 
ealm decision. 


551 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“I have to work ” 

“When you come back. I have made all the ar- 
rangements.” 

“I am going to find Eleanor Leigh. I will find her 
if the world holds her.” 

“Yes, to be sure,” he smiled indulgently. He was 
so strong that I yielded. 

I learned that a good offer was waiting for me to go 
into the law office of one of the large firms when 
I should be well enough to work, in a capacity which 
Jeams would have termed that of a “minor connectee”; 
but it was coupled with the condition that I should 
get well first. My speech at the meeting when I 
denounced Wringman, and my part in the riots, had 
become known, and friends had interested themselves 
in my behalf. So John Marvel reported; and as he 
appeared to be managing things, I assumed that he 
had done this, too. 

I never fully knew until after his death how truly 
Wolffert was one of the Prophets. I often think of him 
with his high aim to better the whole human race, 
inspired by a passion for his own people to extend his 
ministration to all mankind, cast out by those he labored 
for; denying that he was a Christian, and yet dying a 
Christian death in the act of supplicating for those who 
slew him. I owe him a great debt for teaching me 
many things, but chiefly for the knowledge that the 
future of the race rests on the whole people and its 
process depends on each one, however he may love his 
own, working to the death for all. He opened my eyes 
552 


THE CONFLICT 


to the fact that every man who contributes to the 
common good of mankind is one of the chosen people 
and that the fundamental law is to do good to man- 
kind. 

I discovered that John Marvel knew he was in love 
with Eleanor Leigh, though how he knew it I never 
learned. “He never told her,” he said, “but died with 
it locked in his heart — as was best,” he added after a 
pause, and then he looked out of the window, and as he 
did not say anything from which I could judge whether 
he knew why Wolffert never told his love, I did not 
tell what I knew. It may have been the slowly fading 
light which made his face so sad. I remember that a 
long silence fell between us, and it came over me with 
a new force how much more unselfishly both these men 
had loved than I and how much nobler both had al- 
ways been — the living and the dead. And I began 
battling with myself to say something which I felt 
I ought to say, but had not courage enough. 

Presently, John said very slowly, almost as if he were 
speaking to himself, “I believe if you keep on, she will 
marry you, and I believe you will help each other — I 
know she will help you.” His arm was resting on the 
table. 

I leant over and laid my hand on his arm. 

“I once thought it certain I should win her. I am 
far from sure that I shall now. I am not worthy of her — 
but I shall try to be. You alone, John, of all the men I 
know, are. I cannot give her up — but it is only honest 
to tell you that I have less hope than I had.” 

553 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

He turned to me with a sad little smile on his face 
and shook his head. 

“I would not give her up if I were you. You are not 
good enough for her, but no one is, and you will grow 
better.” 

For the first time, I almost thought him handsome. 

“You are, old man.” 

“Me! Oh! no, I am not — I have my work to do — 
it is useless to talk to me — you keep on.” 

He picked up a paper and began to read, and I ob- 
served for the first time that he had taken off his glasses. 
I made some remark on it. 

“Yes, my sight is getting better — I can see the stars 
now,” he said smiling. 

“Ah! John, you have long seen the stars,” I said. 

So, as soon as I could travel, John Marvel sent me 
off — sent me to a farmhouse where he had lived in his 
first parish — a place far from the railroads; a country 
of woods and rolling fields and running streams; the 
real country where blossoms whiten and birds sing and 
waters murmur. 

“They are the best people in the world,” he said; 
and they were. They accepted me on his word. “Mr. 
Marvel had sent me, and that was enough.” His word 
was a talisman in all that region. They did not know 
who the Queen of England was, and were scarcely sure 
as to the President of the United States; but they knew 
John Marvel. And because I had come from him they 
treated me like a prince. And this was the man I had 
had the folly to look down on ! 

554 


THE CONFLICT 

In that quiet place I seemed to have reached content. 
In that land of peace the strife of the city, the noise and 
turmoil and horror of the strike, seemed but as the rumble 
of waves breaking on some far-off shore. I began to 
quaff new life with the first breath of the balmy air. 

The day after I arrived I borrowed the skiff that 
belonged to my host and paddled down the little river 
that skirted his place, with the idea of fishing in a pool 
he had told me of. 

The afternoon was so soft and balmy that I forgot my 
sport and simply drifted with the current under the 
overhanging branches of willows and sycamores, when, 
turning a bend in the stream, I came on a boat floating 
in a placid pool. In it were a young lady and a little 
girl, and who but Dix, his brindled head held high, his 
twisted ears pointed straight up-stream, and his whole 
body writhing and quivering with excitement. It was 
a moment before I could quite take it in, and I felt for 
a second as if I were dreaming. 

Yet there was Eleanor Leigh under the willows, her 
small white hand resting on the side of the boat, her 
face lovelier than ever, and her voice making music in 
my ears with those low, sincere tones that I had never 
forgotten, and which made it the most beautiful in the 
world. I must have carried my soul in my eyes that 
moment; for the color sprang to her cheeks and I saw 
a look in hers I had never seen there before. 

“Well, this is Fate, ,, I said, as the current bore my 
boat against hers and it lay locked against it in that 
limpid pool. 


555 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“ Would Mr. Marvel have called it so?” she asked, 
her eyes resting upon me with a softer look in them than 
they had ever given me. 

“No, he would have said Providence.” 

I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found 
retreat. In that sweet air, freed from any anxieties 
except to please her whose pleasure had become the 
sun of my life, I drank in health day by day and hour 
by hour. My farmhouse was only a half-mile or so 
across the fields to the home of Eleanor Leigh’s old 
cousins with whom she was staying, and only the 
sidereal travellers followed that path so regularly as I. 
It was the same place where she had first met John 
Marvel — and Wolffert. She was even interested in 
my law, and actually listened with intelligence to the 
succulent details of Livery of Seisin, and other ancient 
conveyancing. Not that she yet consented to marry 
me. This was a theme she had a genius for evading. 
However, I knew I should win her. Only one thing 
troubled me. As often as I touched on my future 
plans and spoke of the happiness I should have in 
relieving her of the drudgery of a teacher’s life, she 
used to smile and contest it. It was one of the happi- 
nesses of her life, she said, to teach that school. But 
for it, I would never have “put out her fire for her 
that morning.” Was ever such ingratitude! Of course, 
I would not admit this. “Fate — no, Providence 
was on my side.” And I took out my violets and 
showed them to her, telling her their history. They 
still retained a faint fragrance. And the smile she 
556 



I am sure it was on that stream that Halcyone found retreat. 











. 










































































THE CONFLICT 


gave was enough to make them fresh again. But I, 
too, was friendly to the school. How could I be 
otherwise? For she told me one day that the first 
time she liked me was when I was sitting by the cab- 
driver holding the little dirty child in my arms, with 
Dix between my feet. And I had been ashamed to 
be seen by her ! I only feared that she might take 
it into her head still to keep the school. And I now 
knew that what she took into her little head to be her 
duty she would perform. “By the way, you might 
take lessons in making up the fire,” she suggested. 

I received quite a shock a few days later when I found 
in my mail a letter from the Miss Tippses, telling me of 
their delight on learning of my recovery, and mention- 
ing incidentally the fact, which they felt sure I would be 
glad to know, that they had settled all of their affairs in 
a manner entirely satisfactory to them, as Mr. McSheen 
had very generously come forward at a time when it was 
supposed that I was fatally injured and had offered to 
make reparation to them and pay out of his own pocket, 
not only all of the expenses which they had incurred 
about the matter, but had actually paid them three 
thousand dollars over and above these expenses, a 
munificent sum which had enabled them to pay dear 
Mrs. Kale ail they owed her. They felt sure that I 
would approve of the settlement, because Mr. McSheen’s 
intermediary had been “a life-long friend of mine and 
in some sort,” he said, “my former law partner, as w? 
had lived for years in adjoining offices.” They had 
signed all the papers he had presented and were glad to 
557 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

know that he was entirely satisfied, and now they hoped 
that I would let them know what they owed me, in order 
that they might settle at least that part of their debt; 
but for the rest, they would always owe me a debt of 
undying gratitude* and they prayed God for my speedy 
recovery and unending happiness, and they felt sure 
Mr. Peck would rejoice also to know that I was doing 
so well. 

Peck! And he had charged them a fee for his 
services ! 

It was now approaching the autumn and I was 
chafing to get back to work. I knew now that success 
was before me. It might be a long road; but I was on it. 

John Marvel, in reply to an inquiry, wrote that the 
place was still waiting for me in the office he had men- 
tioned, though he did not state what it was. 

“How stupid he is!” I complained. Eleanor Leigh 
only laughed. 

She “did not think him stupid at all, and certainly 
she didnot think I should do so. In fact, she considered 
him one of the most sensible men she ever knew.” 

“Why, he could not have done more to keep me in 
ignorance, if he had tried,” I fumed. And she only 
laughed the more. 

“ I believe you are jealous of him. ” Her eyes were 
dancing in an exasperating way they had. I was con- 
sumed with jealousy of everybody; but I would never 
admit it. 

“Jealous of John Marvel! Nonsense! But I be- 
lieve you were in — you liked him very much?” 

558 


THE CONFLICT 


‘‘I did,” she nodded cheerily. “I do — more than 
any one I ever knew — almost.” And she launched out 
in a eulogy of John which quite set me on fire. 

“Then why did you not marry him?” I was con- 
scious that my head went up and my wrath was rising. 

“He never asked me.” Her dancing eyes still play- 
ing hide and seek with mine. 

“I supposed there was some good reason,” I said 
loftily. She vouchsafed no answer — only went on 
making a chain of daisies, while her dimples came and 
went, and I went on to make a further fool of myself. 
I was soon haled up and found myself in that outer 
darkness, where the cheerful occupation is gnashing of 
teeth. Like the foolish glass-merchant, I had smashed 
all my hopes. I walked home through the Vale of 
Bitterness. 

That evening, after spending some hours in trying to 
devise a plan by which I could evade the humiliation of 
an absolute surrender, and get back without crawling too 
basely, I went over to say what I called — good-by. I 
was alone; for Dix had abandoned me for her, and I 
did not blame him even now. It was just dusk; 
but it seemed to me midnight. I had never known the 
fields so dark. As I turned into a path through the 
orchard where I had had so many happy hours, I dis- 
covered her sitting on the ground beneath a tree with 
Dix beside her; but as I approached she rose and leant 
against the tree, her dryad eyes resting on me placidly- 
I walked up slowly. 

“Good evening — ” solemnly. 

559 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

“Good evening — ” seriously. 

I was choosing amongst a half-dozen choice sentences 
I had framed as an introduction to my parting speech, 
when she said quietly, looking up: “I thought you 
might not come back this evening.” 

“ I have come to say good-by.” 

“Are you going away?” Her voice expressed sur- 
prise — nothing more. 

“Yes.” Solemnly. 

“For how long?” — without looking up. 

“Perhaps, forever.” Tragically. 

“ You are better at making a fire than I had supposed. 
Will you give me Dix?” This with the flash of a 
dimple. 

“I — I — yes — if you want him.” 

I glanced at her face just in time to see the dimples 
disappear. “I am thinking of being married next 
week.” My heart stopped beating. 

“You were — what?” 

“But of course, if you are going away I could not 
do it, could I?” Her eyes sought mine, then fell. 

“Eleanor!” I tried to possess myself of her hand; 
but she put it behind her. I tried to secure the other; 
but that also disappeared. Then I took — herself. 
“Eleanor!” Her face next second had grown grave. 
She looked up suddenly and looked me full in the eyes. 

“You are a goose. What would you think if I were 
to say I would marry you right away?” She looked 
down again quickly, and her face was sweet with tender- 
ness. 


560 


THE CONFLICT 


I was conscious of a sudden drawing in of my breath, 
and a feeling as if I were rising into the sky, “rimmed 
by the azure world.” Then my brain began to act, and 
I seemed to have been lifted above the darkness. I was 
up in the sunlight again. 

“I should think I was in Heaven,” I said quietly, 
almost reverently. “ But for God’s sake, don’t say that 
to me unless you mean it.” 

“Well, I will. I have written my father. Write to 
Mr. Marvel and ask him to come here.” 

I have never known yet whether this last was a piece 
of humor. I only know I telegraphed John Marvel, 
and though I rode all night to do so, I thought it was 
broad daylight. 

In the ripe autumn John Marvel, standing before us 
in his white surplice in the little chapel among the oaks 
and elms which had been his first church, performed 
the ceremony that gave me the first prize I had really 
striven for — the greatest any man on earth could have 
won. 

Still, as often as I spoke of my future plans, there was 
some secret between them: a shadowy suggestion of 
some mystery in which they both participated. And, 
but that I knew John Marvel too well, I might have 
been impatient. But I knew him now for the first time 
as she had known him long. 

On our arrival in the city, after I had given the driver 
an order where to go, she gave another, and when the 
carriage drew up, it was not at my hotel, but at the door 
of the sunny house on the corner where I had first seen 
561 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

Eleanor Leigh come tripping down the steps with her 
parcels for the poor little crippled child and her violets 
for the Miss Tippses. Springing out before me, with 
her face radiant with joy and mystery, she tripped up 
the steps now just as the door was flung open by a but- 
ler who wore a comical expression of mingled pleasure 
and solemnity, for the butler was Jeams, and then hav- 
ing introduced him to me, she suddenly took the key 
from the lock, and handing it to me with a bow and a 
low laugh of delight: 

“I make you, sir, livery of seisin.” 

This, then, was the mystery. 

She still lived in the house on the corner — throngh 
the aid offered by my namesake and kinsman her father 
had been enabled to retain it, and had given it to her 
as a wedding present. 

So after long striving by ways that I knew not, and 
by paths that I had not tried, my fancy was realized. 

I now dwell in the house on the corner that I picked 
so long ago for its sunshine. 

It is even sunnier than I thought it. For I have 
found that sunlight and sweetness are not from without, 
but from within, and in that home is the radiance I 
caught that happy morning when I first saw Eleanor 
Leigh come tripping down the steps, like April, shed- 
ding sunshine and violets in her path. 


562 


XL 


THE CURTAIN 

In closing a novel, the old novelists used to tell their 
readers, who had followed them long enough to become 
their friends, what in the sequel became of all the prin- 
cipal characters; and this custom I feel inclined to 
follow, because it appears to me to show that the story 
is in some sort the reflection of life as it is and not as 
novelist or reader would make it. Fate may follow all 
men, but not in the form in which every reader would 
have it fall. 

It might have satisfied one’s ideas of justice if I could 
have told how Coll is McSheen reaped in prison the re- 
ward of his long hidden crimes, and the adventurer, 
Pushkin, unmasked and degraded, was driven out from 
among the wealthy, whom he so sedulously cultivated; 
but this would not have been true to the facts. Collis 
McSheen moved into the great house which he had 
bought with his ill-gained wealth to gratify his daugh- 
ter’s ambition, and lived for many years, to outward 
seeming, a more or less respectable man; gave reason- 
ably where he thought it would pay, from the money of 
which he had robbed others, and doubtless endeavored 
to forget his past, as he endeavored to make others for- 
get it; but that past was linked to him by bands which 
563 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

no effort could ever break. And though he secured the 
adulation of those whom he could buy with his gaudy 
entertainments, he could never secure the recognition 
of any worthy man. 

In his desperate hope to become respectable he broke 
with many of his old friends and with all whom he 
could escape from, but he could not escape from one, 
however he strove to break with him : himself. Chained 
to him by a bond he could not break was the putres- 
cent body of his reeking past. It is the curse of men 
like him that those he longs to make his friends are the 
element who will have none of him. Thus, like 
Sisyphus, he ever strives to roll the stone to the hill-top, 
and, like Tantalus, he ever strives to reach the water 
flowing below his lips. Though he had escaped the 
legal punishment of his crimes, his punishment was 
that he lived in constant dread of the detection which 
appeared ever to dog his footsteps. The last measure 
in the bitter cup which he had filled with his own hand 
came from his daughter, who now called herself Count- 
ess Pushkin. Finding that, notwithstanding her so- 
called title and large establishment, she was excluded 
from that set to which she had been tolerantly admitted 
while she had youth and gayety and the spirits of a 
schoolgirl, not to mention the blindness of that age 
to things which experience sees clearly enough, she 
conceived the idea that it was her fathers presence in 
her home which closed to her the doors of those houses 
where she aspired to be intimate. The idea, though 
it had long had a lodgment in her mind, had been f os- 
564 


THE CURTAIN 


tered by Pushkin. Having to make her choice between 
her father and her social aspirations, she decided 
promptly. The scene which occurred was one which 
neither Collis McSheen nor his daughter could ever 
forget. In the sequel McSheen moved out and took 
quarters in a hotel, where he gradually sank into the 
hopelessness of a lonely misanthrope, shorn of his power, 
feared only by those he despised, detested by those he 
admired, and haunted by the fear of those he hated. 

Pushkin remained in some sort in possession of the 
field, but though McSheen’s daughter had been able 
to banish her father from his own home, she could not 
escape from her husband, whose vices, if apparently 
less criminal than McSheen’s, were not less black. 
His capacity for spending money was something she 
had never dreamed of, and, like the horse-leech’s 
daughter, he continually called for more, until after a 
furious scene, his wife awoke to her power, and already 
half-beggared, suddenly shut her purse as her heart had 
been long shut against him, and bade him go. From 
this time her power over him was greater than it had 
ever been before; but unless rumor belied them des- 
perately, they lived a life of cat and dog with all that it 
implied, until finally Pushkin was driven out, and after 
hanging about for a few years, died, as I learned, while 
his wife was off in Europe. 

Peck continued, to outward appearance, a prosperous 
lawyer. His inveterate economy enabled him to pre- 
serve the appearance of prosperity; but no lawyer of 
standing ever spoke of him without a shrug of theshoul- 
665 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

der or a lift of the eyebrow. Rumor dealt somewhat 
freely with his domestic affairs, but I never knew the 
facts, and rumor is often as great a liar almost as — I had 
nearly said as Peck, but that would be impossible. My 
last personal experience of him was in the case of Mr. 
Leigh’s suit to keep control of his railway. In the final 
suit involving the straightening out of all matters con- 
nected with the attempt of the Canters and their set to 
get control of this property, I was retained as junior 
counsel along with my kinsman, Mr. Glave, and other 
counsel, representing Mr. Leigh’s and his associates’ 
interest. Peck appeared in the case as one of the rep- 
resentatives of a small alleged interest held by his 
father-in-law, Mr. Poole, which, as turned out on the 
final decision of the cause, had no value whatever. 
This having been decided, Peck, who was not without 
energy, at least where money was concerned, brought 
forward a claim for compensation to be allowed him 
out of the fund, and when this also was decided against 
him, he sought and secured a conference with our coun- 
sel, at which I was present. The contention which he 
set forth was based upon an equitable claim, as he 
termed it, to compensation for expenses and professional 
services expended under color of title, and if the facts 
he stated had been so, he might have been entitled 
equitably to some allowance. I had satisfied myself 
that his claims were without a shadow of foundation, 
yet he had the nerve, when he concluded his argument, 
or rather his personal appeal to our counsel, to turn to 
me for corroboration of his statement. 

566 


THE CURTAIN 


“I admit, gentlemen,” he said, “that these facts rest 
largely on my personal assurances, and, unfortunately, 
I am not known personally to most of you, though I 
trust that my professional standing where I am known 
may be accepted as a guarantee of my statements; but 
happily, there is one of you to whom I can refer with 
confidence, my old college mate and valued friend, 
Henry Glave. I might almost term him my former 
partner, so closely were we associated in the days when 
we were both struggling young attorneys, living in ad- 
joining offices — I might, indeed, almost say the same 
office. He, I feel quite sure, will corroborate every 
statement I have made, at least so far as he knows the 
facts, and even where they rest wholly on my declara- 
tion, I feel sure of his indorsement, for he knows that 
I would cut off my right hand and have my tongue torn 
from its roots, before I would utter an untruth in any 
matter whatsoever; and least of all, where so paltry a 
thing as money is concerned. I appeal to Henry 
Glave.” 

He sat down with his eyes fixed blandly on me. I 
was so taken aback that I scarcely knew what to say. 
The smoothness of his words and the confidence of his 
manner had evidently made an impression on the 
others. They had, indeed, almost influenced me, but 
suddenly a whole train of reflection swept through my 
mind. Peck’s duplicity from his earliest appearance 
in Wolffert’s room at college down to the present, with 
my two old clients, the Miss Tippses, at the end, de- 
ceived and robbed by Collis McSheen, with Peck, as 
567 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

the facile instrument, worming himself into their con- 
fidence for what he called so paltry a thing as money, 
all came clearly to my mind. I stood up slowly, for I 
was thinking hard ; but my duty appeared clear. 

I regretted, I said, that Mr. Peck had appealed to 
me and to my long acquaintance with him, for it made 
my position a painful one; but as he had cited me as a 
witness, I felt that my duty was plain, and this was to 
state the facts. In my judgment, Mr. Peck was not 
entitled to any compensation whatever, as the evidence, 
so far as it existed outside of Mr. Peck’s statements, 
was contrary to his contention, and so far as it rested 
on his personal testimony, I considered it as nothing, 
for I would not believe one word he said where his per- 
sonal interest was concerned. 

“And now,” I added, “if Mr. Peck wishes me to give 
the grounds on which this opinion of mine is based, 
either orally or in writing, I will do so.” 

I paused, with my gaze fastened on him, and, with 
a sudden settling in their seats, the other counsel also 
turned their eyes on him. His face had suddenly 
blanched, but beyond this his expression did not 
change. He sat for a few seconds rather limply, and 
then slowly rose. 

“I am astonished,” he began slowly, and his voice 
faltered. “I am surprised, gentlemen, that Mr. Glave 
should think such things of me.” He took out his 
watch, fumblingly, and glanced at it. It was the same 
watch he had got of me. “ I see I must ask you to ex- 
cuse me. I must catch my train,” he stammered. 
568 


THE CURTAIN 

“ Good morning,” and he put on his hat and slunk out 
of the door. 

As the door closed every one drew a long breath and 
lettled in his seat, and nearly every one said, “Well.” 

My kinsman, whose eyes had been resting on me 
with a somewhat unwonted twinkle in them, reached 
across the board and extended his large hand. 

“Well, young man, you and I had a misunderstand- 
ing a few years ago, but I hope you bear me no grudge 
for it now. I should like to be friends with you. If 
you had needed it, you would have squared all accounts 
to-day. I know that man. He is the greatest liar on 
earth. He has lost the power to tell the truth.” 

It may well be believed that I had gripped his hand 
when he first held it out, and the grip was one of a 
friendship that has lasted. 

I had expected to hear from Peck, but no word came 
from him, and the last I ever heard of him was that he 
and McSheen had had a quarrel, in which McSheen 
had kicked him out of his office. A suit appeared on 
the docket against McSheen, in which Peck was the 
plaintiff, but no declaration was ever filed, and the case 
was finally dropped from the docket. 

Jeams failed to hold long the position of butler in our 
modest household, for though my wife put up — on my 
account, as I believe — with Jeams’s occasionally marked 
unsteadiness of gait or mushiness of utterance, she 
finally broke with him on discovering that Dix showed 
unmistakable signs of a recent conflict, in which the 
fact that he had been worsted had possibly something 
569 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

to do with Jeams’s discharge, for Dix was the idol of her 
heart, and it came to her ears that Jeams had taken 
Dix out one night and matched him against the cham- 
pion of the town. But though Jeams lost the post of 
butler, he simply reverted to his old position of factotum 
and general utility man about my premises His mar- 
riage to a very decent woman, though, according to 
rumor, with a termagant’s tongue, helped to keep him 
reasonably straight, though not uniformly so; for one 
afternoon my wife and I came across him when he 
showed that degree of delightful pomposity which was 
the unmistakable sign of his being “half-shot.” 

“Jeams,” I said, when I had cut short his grandilo- 
quence, “what will Eliza say to you when she finds you 
this way again ? ” 

Jeams straightened himself and assumed his most 
dignified air. “My wife, sir, knows better than to 
take me to task. She recognizes me, sir, as a gentle- 
man.” 

“She does ? You wait and see when you get home.” 

Jeams’s manner suddenly changed. He sank back 
into his half-drivelling self. “Oh, she ain’t gwine to 
say nothin’ to me, Marse Hen. She ain’t gwine to say 
no more than Miss Nelly there says to you when you 
gets this way. What does she say to you ?” 

“She doesn’t say anything to me. She has no oc- 
casion to do so.” 

Jeams twisted his head to one side and burst into a 
drunken laugh. “Oh! Yes, she do. I’ve done heard 
her. Eliza, she regalates me, and Miss Nelly, she 
570 


THE CURTAIN 


regalates you, an’ I reckon we both knows it, and we 
better know it, too.” 

And this was the fact. As usual, Jeams had struck 
the mark. 

As for John Marvel, he remained the same old John — 
plodding, quiet, persistent, patient, zealous, cheery and 
self-sacrificing, working among the poor with an un- 
faltering trust in human nature which no shocks could 
shake, because deep down in the untroubled depths of 
his soul lay an unfaltering trust in the Divine Goodness 
and wisdom of God. He had been called to a larger 
and quite important church, but after a few days of 
consideration he, against the earnest wishes and advice 
of his friends, myself among them, declined the call. 
He assigned among other reasons the fact that he was 
expected to work to pay off the debt for which the 
church was somewhat noted, and he knew nothing 
about business, his duty was to preach the gospel, but 
when friends made it plain that the debt would be 
taken care of if he became the rector, he still shook his 
head. His work was among the poor and he could not 
leave them. 

My wife and I went out to his church the Sunday 
evening following his decision, and as we strolled along 
through the well-known squalid streets, I could not help 
expressing my disappointment that after all our work 
he should have rejected the offer. 

“He is really the most unpractical man on earth,” I 
fumed. “Here we have gotten him a good call to a 
church that many a man would jump at, and when he 
571 


JOHN MARVEL, ASSISTANT 

finds a difficulty in the way, we work until we have 
removed it and yet he rejects it. He will remain an 
assistant to the end of his days.” My wife made no 
reply, a sure sign that she did not agree with me, but did 
not care to discuss the matter. It is her most effective 
method of refuting me. 

When we arrived we found the little church packed 
to suffocation and men on the outside leaning in at the 
windows. Among them I recognized the tall form of 
my old Drummer. As we joined the group, John 
Marvel’s voice, clear and strong, came floating out 
through the open windows. 

He was giving out a hymn. 

“One sweetly solemn thought 
Comes to me o’er and o’er: 

I am nearer home to-day 
Than I ever have been before.” 

The whole congregation joined in, those without the 
church as well as those who were within. 

As I heard the deep bass of the old Drummer, rolling 
in a low, solemn undertone, a sudden shifting of the 
scene came to me. I was in a great auditorium filled 
with light, and packed with humanity rising tier on 
tier and stretching far back till lost in the maze of dis- 
tances. A grand orchestra, banked before me, with 
swaying arms and earnest faces, played a wonderful 
harmony which rolled about me like the sea and 
whelmed me with its volume till I was almost swept 
away by the tide, then suddenly down under its sweep I 
572 


THE CURTAIN 


found the low deep roll of the bass drum. No one ap- 
peared to mark it or paid any heed to him. Nor did the 
big Drummer pay any heed to the audience. All he 
minded was the harmony and his drum. But I knew 
that, unmarked and unheeded, it set athrob the pulsing 
air and stirred the billows through which all that divine 
music reached and held the soul. 

As we walked home that night after pressing our way 
into the throng of poor people to wring John Marvel's 
hand, I said to my wife after a struggle with myself to 
say it: 

“I think I was wrong about John, and you were 
right. He did right. He is well named the Assistant." 

My wife said simply: “I feel that I owe him more 
than I can say." She slipped her hand in my arm, and 
a warm feeling for all mankind surged about my heart. 


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